Abstract
Activity-density data reveal community structure of Lycosidae at a Mediterranean shrubland
Highlights
Community structure is determined by a combination of factors such as regional species pool, biotic and abiotic environmental variables, and ecological and evolutionary processes (Zobel 1997)
One example of an ecological process, that may occur among species with similar ecological niches, is competition, that can result in either species competitive coexistence or exclusion of species (Wilson 1999, Amarasekare 2003)
We found that time in the season affected significantly the activity-density of all four species, sexes and developmental stages, while the interaction between time and geophyte density affected all species but P. subsordidatula
Summary
Using the dataset from Bernstein’s study, we studied the effect of environmental variables, such as density of plant life-forms (bushes, dwarf shrubs and grasses), habitat characteristics and land use, as well as time in the season, on the activity-density of lycosid species, sex and developmental stages in spring of 2012. Environmental variables, including habitat characteristics (% exposed ground, small stones for one square meter, large stones for one square meter), land use (% monthly grazing, % yearly grazing) and plant life-form (density of annual grasses, density of geophytes, density of dwarf shrubs, density of bushes) were measured once in all locations, prior to the collection period and used to test microhabitat preference (coexistence due to resource partitioning). RLQ analysis was conducted using the ade package in R (Chessel et al 2004)
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