Urbanization is a major cause of biotic homogenization and habitat fragmentation for native communities. However, the role urbanization on success biological invasions continental scale has yet to be explored. may facilitate establishment invasive species by minimizing niche differentiation between invaded ranges. In such cases, we might expect anthropogenic variables have stronger influence ge...

Black-necked Crane (Grus nigricollis) is a vulnerable Red list species whose populations are declining. However, little is known about Black-necked Cranes' habitat requirements or the causes of their population decline. We identified Black-necked Cranes' winter roost and foraging preferences of Black-necked Cranes in Bhutan during the winter of 2013-2014. Black-necked Cranes' roosts were record...

Predatory arthropods can exert strong top-down control on ecosystem functions. However, despite extensive theory and experimental manipulations of predator diversity, our knowledge about relationships between plant and predator diversity--and thus information on the relevance of experimental findings--for species-rich, natural ecosystems is limited. We studied activity abundance and species ric...

Experiments tested the ability of newly emerged spiderlings of a black widow spider, Latrodectus hesperus Chamberlin & Ivie (Araneae: Theridiidae), to crawl through brass screen of various mesh size. The purpose was to determine whether immatures of these medically important spiders could be excluded from buildings. In horizontal orientation, black widow spiderlings were able to easily pass thr...

Eggs of black widow spiders in the genus Latrodectus Walckenaer, 1805 (Theridiidae) are known to be toxic when injected into mammals. We surveyed eggs from 39 species of spiders in 21 families to determine if spider egg toxicity is a unique property of widow spiders, or if spider egg toxicity is associated with other spider taxa. Eggs from 13 species of spiders in three families were determined...

Noninvasive genetic sampling enables biomonitoring without the need to directly observe or disturb target organisms. This paper describes a novel and promising source of noninvasive spider and insect DNA from spider webs. Using black widow spiders (Latrodectus spp.) fed with house crickets (Acheta domesticus), we successfully extracted, amplified, and sequenced mitochondrial DNA from spider web...

Molecular and material properties of major ampullate silk were studied for the cobweb-building black widow spider Latrodectus hesperus. Material properties were measured by stretching the silk to breaking. The strength was 1.0 +/- 0.2 GPa, and the extensibility was 34 +/- 8%. The secondary structure of the major ampullate silk protein was studied using carbon-13 NMR spectroscopy. Alanine underg...

15 Noninvasive genetic approaches enable biomonitoring without the need to directly observe or 16 disturb target organisms. Environmental DNA (eDNA) methods have recently extended this 17 approach by assaying genetic material within bulk environmental samples without a priori 18 knowledge about the presence of target biological material. This paper describes a novel and 19 promising source of n...