In the province of Granada (southern Spain) spiders were studied in olive-tree canopies, in olive orchards under similar environmental conditions but different management systems: organic, integrated and conventional. Monthly samplings (March to October) was performed in the canopy by the beating method. Spider abundance proved significantly higher in the organic than in the conventional orchar...

In this study, the karyotypes of six spider species from Turkey belonging to the families Gnaphosidae, Salticidae, Thomisidae, and Zodariidae were analyzed. Male chromosomal features including diploid chromosome numbers and sex chromosome systems were determined as 2n=22, X1X20 in Drassyllus sur Tuneva & Esyunin, 2003, Nomisia exornata (C. L. Koch, 1839), and Nomisia orientalis Dalmas, 1921; 2n...

Morphological comparison of the genera Angaeus Thorell, 1881 and Paraborboropactus Tang and Li, 2009 (Araneae: Thomisidae) shows that the latter should be relegated to a junior synonym of the former. Further, I propose the following new synonyms: Angaeus leucomenus (Thorell, 1895), Stephanopis weyersi Simon, 1899 and Paraborboropactus leguminaceus Tang and Li, 2009 = Angaeus rhombifer Thorell, ...

Male pedipalp characters support the hypothesis that there are potentially at least three clades within European Xysticus s.l. C.L. Koch, 1835 (Araneae: Thomisidae). These clades correspond with the older, but currently synonymised, genera Proxysticus Dalmas, 1922 and Psammitis Menge, 1875. Synapomorphies in the male pedipalp shared with other thomisid genera (e.g. Coriarachne Thorell, 1870, Oz...

Habitat heterogeneity that occurs within an individual's lifetime may favour the evolution of reversible plasticity. Colour reversibility has many different functions in animals, such as thermoregulation, crypsis through background matching and social interactions. However, the mechanisms underlying reversible colour changes are yet to be thoroughly investigated. This study aims to determine th...

YURI M. MARUSIK, MIKHAIL M. OMELKO & SURESH P. BENJAMIN 1 Institute for Biological Problems of the North, RAS, Portovaya Str. 18, Magadan 685000, Russia. E-mail: [email protected] 2 Zoological Museum, University of Turku, FI-20014 Turku, Finland 3 Gornotaezhnaya Station FEB RAS, Gornotaezhnoe Vil., Ussuriyski Dist., Primorski krai 692533, Russia. E-mail: [email protected] 4 Far Eastern Federal Uni...

Spiders have become an important model to study the evolution of sociality, but a lack of their detailed natural history and taxonomy hinders broader comparative studies. Group-living crab spiders (Thomisidae) provide an excellent contrast to other social spiders since they lack a communal capture web, which was thought to be a critical factor in the evolution of sociality. Only three non-webbu...

The spatial and temporal structure of spider communities was studied in the clay semi-desert of the north-western Caspian Lowland, western Kazakhstan (49°23' N, 46°47' E). The soils and vegetation are complex, being composed of a mosaic of desert and steppe plant communities. Besides the native associations, there are plantations of different tree species. The ground-dwelling spider assemblages...