Most spiders are content to sit and wait for unsuspecting victims to blunder into their silken traps, but webs are only ever as good as the structures that secure them to the surfaces that support them. ‘This [attachment] is done with a special type of silk, called piriform’, says Jonas Wolff, from Macquarie University, Australia, adding that most spiders only produce this silk when they need t...

This study shows that disturbance caused by cover-crop removal (CCR) in an organic olive orchard affects ground-spider populations. The effect of CCR on various organic olive-orchard plots was assessed by monitoring the abundance and diversity of ground-dwelling spiders. Covered plots in the organic olive orchard were compared with uncovered plots where the covers had been removed mechanically....

Most spiders are content to sit and wait for unsuspecting victims to blunder into their silken traps, but webs are only ever as good as the structures that secure them to the surfaces that support them. ‘This [attachment] is done with a special type of silk, called piriform’, says Jonas Wolff, from Macquarie University, Australia, adding that most spiders only produce this silk when they need t...