Spiders of the Kansas Ecological Reserves

Abstract

Spiders are a conspicuous and ecologically important group of predators although they may serve as prey for other species. Despite their importance, research in araneology has been hampered by the difficulty of making accurate identifications and the lack of natural history information for even many common species. Information concerning the spider fauna of Kansas is limited. The only surveys of this group within the state are those by Cragin (1886), Scheffer (1904, 1905), Fitch (1963, 1965), Fitch and Fitch (1966), Guarisco and Kinman (1990), Guarisco and Mott (1990), and Guarisco and Fitch (1991). Although a thorough knowledge of the Kansas spider fauna is a distant goal, intensive study in the relatively small area of the Kansas Ecological Reserves (KER) has provided a working knowledge of the identity and habits of the local fauna. The KER consists of 1625 acres of land in several locations in Douglas and Jefferson Counties in northeastern Kansas. This land, which is used for education and environmental research at the University of Kansas, contains examples of tallgrass prairie, eastern deciduous forest, climax oak-hickory forest, and areas under agricultural management (Fitch and Kettle, 1988). This checklist is based on earlier work at the Fitch Natural History Reservation (FNHR) and Rockefeller Experimental Tract (Fitch, 1963), collections by the first author, primarily from the FNHR and Nelson Environmental Study Area, from 1972 to the present, and recent pitfall trap samples taken during a study of the effect of habitat fragmentation upon species diversity (Robinson and others, 1992). Only limited collecting has been done in the Baldwin Woods area. More field work, especially in the Baldwin