dwelling spiders in vineyards of Douro Demarcated Region, Portugal?

(1)

Which is the role of non-crop habitats on biodiversity of ground-

dwelling spiders in vineyards of Douro Demarcated Region, Portugal?

1Centre for the Research and Technology of Agro-Environmental and Biological Sciences, CITAB, University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro, UTAD, Quinta de Prados, 5001-801, Vila Real, Portugal, www.utad.pt; mariafg@utad.pt

2Centre for Environmental Biology/PEERS, Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa, Ed. C2, 2º Piso, Campo Grande, 1749-016 Lisboa, Portugal

3ADVID – Association for the Development of Viticulture in the Douro Region, Quinta de Santa Maria, Apt. 137, 5050-106 Godim, Portugal, cristina.carlos@advid.pt

4SOGEVINUS FINE WINES S.A., 4400-111 Vila Nova de Gaia, Portugal

5Real Companhia Velha- R. Azevedo Magalhães, n.º 314 Oliveira do Douro, 4430-022 Vila Nova de Gaia

CONCLUSIONS INTRODUCTION

MATERIAL AND METHODS

RESULTS

Family N % Genera

(N)

Species (N)

Agelenidae 40 6.8 2 5

Araneidae 2 0.3 0 0

Corinnidae 1 0.2 1 1

Dictynidae 5 0.9 3 2

Gnaphosidae 126 21.5 9 10

Lycosidae 63 10.8 3 4

Linyphiidae 18 3.1 2 2

Nemesiidae 1 0.2 1 1

Oecobiidae 3 0.5 1 1

Oonopidae 1 0.2 1 -

Oxyopidae 4 0.7 1 1

Philodromidae 6 1.0 1 1

Theridiidae 7 1.2 1 1

Thomisidae 52 8.9 3 4

Titanoecidae 9 1.5 1 1

Salticidae 19 3.2 8 4

Scytodidae 5 0.9 1 2

Sicariidae 6 1.0 1 1

Zodariidae 151 25.8 1 3

Other Araneae 66 11.3 - -

Total 585 100 41 44

FÁTIMA GONÇALVES

¹

, LUÍS CRESPO

²

, CRISTINA CARLOS

^1,3

, SUSANA SOUSA

¹

, MÁRCIO NÓBREGA

⁴

, RUI SOARES

⁵

, LAURA TORRES

¹

This research was developped under Ecovitis project, funded by Programa de Desenvolvimento Rural – Ministério da Agricultura, Mar, Ambiente e Ordenamento do Território – Fundo Europeu Agrícola de Desenvolvimento Rural – A Europa investe nas zonas rurais

Poznan, Poland January 14-16, 2015

Spiders are generalist predators that play a key role on the biological control of arthropod pests. Under project EcoVitis “Maximizing ecosystem services in Douro Demarcated Region vineyards” it was intended to show that the maintenance and/or implementation of vineyards neighboring non-crop vegetation can result in benefits to winegrowers by enhancing conservation biological control of arthropod pests. The specific objective of this work was to study the composition of ground-dwelling spider communities in vineyards from Douro Demarcated Region, as well as to evaluate the influence of the presence of potential ecological infrastructures (EI) (Böller et al., 2004) (an woodland and an abandoned almond grove) near the vineyard in its colonization by spiders through the season.

Spiders were monitored between April and October 2013, in five vineyards, one per each of the following farms: Carvalhas, Granja, Aciprestes, Cidrô and Arnozelo. So, pitfall traps were settled inside the vineyards, along three transects in three different distances (5, 50 and 100 m) from the studied EI, during three periods: mid-April to mid-June, mid-June to mid-August and mid-August to end of September.

The collected sample allowed the identification of 19 families and 41 genera of Aranea, from which 44 species were identified (Table 1). The most abundant families were Zodariidae (25.8%) (Fig. 1A), Gnaphosidae (21.5%) (Fig. 1B), Lycosidae (10.8%) (Fig. 1C), Thomisidae (8.9%) (Fig. 1D) and Agelenidae (6.8%) (Table 1). For species, the most abundant were Zodarion styliferum (18.6%) followed by Alopecosa albofasciata (4.6%), Tegenaria feminea (3.9%) and Xysticus bufo (3.1%). Two species (T. feminea and Z. styliferum) were present in all farms, suggesting that they are well adapted to the region; conversely about 47% occurred in only one of the farms. The relative abundance of 71.4% of the taxa was lower than 1%.

No statistically significant differences could be found between farms in either the richness or diversity of spiders, but their abundance was significantly different. Moreover, while in the early period of sampling both the abundance and diversity of spiders tended to be higher in the distance of 5 m from the EI, compared to either that of 50 or 100 m, during the middle and late periods of sampling these indices tended to be higher in the greater distances from the EI (i.e.

50 and 100 m). Although these could suggest the dispersal of the spiders from the EI to the inside of vineyards, the differences found were not statistically significant.

The obtained results could be related to the fact that the soil of the studied vineyards provided habitat for the ground-dwelling spiders, during all the studied period, as natural vegetation cover, which even after mowed was maintained in the soil. Hogg &

Danne (2009) in a work conducted in California vineyards also found that the dispersal activity of ground spiders did not change over the time.

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70

Cidrô Granja Aciprestes Arnozelo Carvalhas Total

Abundance of spiders (N)

5 50 100

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70

5 50 100

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70

5 50 100

0 5 10 15 20 25

Richeness of spiders (S)

5 50 100

0 5 10 15 20 25

5 50 100

0 5 10 15 20 25

5 50 100

0 1 2 3

Shannon index (H')

5 50 100

0 1 2 3

5 50 100

0 1 2 3

5 50 100

Table 1 - Spider families (number (N) and relative frequency (%)) and number of genera and species per family identified

Early period

Mid-April to mid-June

Middle period

Mid-June to mid-August

Late period

Mid-August to end of September

Figure 2 – Abundance (N) (in orange), richeness (S) (in green) and Shannon index (S’) (in blue) of spiders per vineyard and distance in the three periods.

REFERENCES

Böller EF, Häni F & Poehling HM. 2004. Ecological infrastructures: Ideabook on functional biodiversity at the farm level – temperate zones of Europe. IOBCwprs Comm Integr Prod Guid Endors LBL, Lindau, Switzerland

Figure 1 – Adults of Zodariidae (A), Gnaphosidae (B), Lycosidae (C) and Thomisidae (D)

A B C D

Hogg BN & Daane KM. 2009. The role of dispersal from natural habitat in determining spider abundance and diversity in

California vineyards. Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 135: 260–267