Multiple Factors at Regional, Landscape, and Local Scales Determine Spider Assemblage Composition in Pomegranate Orchards

Ibrahim N. A. Salman, Yael Lubin and Efrat Gavish-Regev
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Ibrahim N. A. Salman: Mitrani Department of Desert Ecology, Jacob Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Midreshet Ben-Gurion 8499000, Israel
Yael Lubin: Mitrani Department of Desert Ecology, Jacob Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Midreshet Ben-Gurion 8499000, Israel
Efrat Gavish-Regev: The National Natural History Collections, Edmond J. Safra Campus, Giv’at Ram, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem 9190401, Israel

Agriculture, 2022, vol. 12, issue 4, 1-15

Abstract: Orchards may support high spider diversity relative to annual crops due to their structural complexity and relative stability. Multiple environmental conditions at the landscape, regional, and local scales may influence the assemblage composition of spiders in orchards. We asked which environmental variables best explains spider assemblage composition and the similarity of the assemblages of pomegranate orchards located along a latitudinal gradient in Israel? Spiders were sampled from twelve pomegranate orchards along a climatic gradient from north to south. Orchards located at higher latitudes had richer assemblages than orchards located at lower latitudes. The assemblage composition was influenced at the large scale by latitude and annual crop cover in the surrounding landscape but not by local factors. By contrast, functional groups based on foraging strategies were affected by local scale factors, such as vegetation within the orchards. This study demonstrates the importance of considering environmental variables at different scales to understand the factors affecting the assemblage composition of naturally occurring predators in the orchard.

Keywords: Araneae; agroecology; perennial crops; spatial scales; species composition (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q10 Q11 Q12 Q13 Q14 Q15 Q16 Q17 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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