PARENT SESSION
Poster Session #16: Landscape Ecology I.
Monday, August 5. Presentation from 5:00 PM to 6:30 PM. Exhibit Hall B & C, TCC

Biological conservation in riparian forests: An investigation with web spiders.

Higgins, Terrence^*,1, Rypstra, Ann¹, ¹ "The Spider Lab", Oxford, OH

ABSTRACT- Riparian forests are areas of high conservation concern due to their value in maintaining water quality, ecosystem functioning, and biological diversity. Riparian habitats harbor more biological diversity than any other habitat type for many taxa. In highly fragmented agricultural landscapes, riparian forests are often the primary sources of forested habitat. Therefore, conservation and management of these habitats may be crucial to maintaining biological diversity on both landscape and regional scales. We investigated the effects of riparian forest conservation on the terrestrial community using web spiders as model taxa. We examined abundance, diversity, and community composition of web spiders as they relate to different habitats and land use practices in Ohio. We compared web spider assemblages among twelve study sites including riparian forests of three width classifications and hedgerow forests (continuous forests with no associated stream). All riparian forests sites were bound by a stream on one side and by an agricultural field on the other. At each site, we sampled web spiders in three 5 x 10-meter quadrats: at the agricultural edge, the stream edge, and the midpoint respectively. Diversities and abundances of web spiders were highest at the agricultural edge of riparain forest sites. We also found that riparian forest sites harbored more diversity than hedgerow forests. We suggest that web spider diversities and abundances in riparian forests may exceed those of hedgerow forests of similar widths.

KEY WORDS: riparian forest, hedgerow forest, web spiders