How many spiders in garden?

Africa · #1 (**permalink**) 16-05-2010, 09:05 PM

Can anybody provide any estimate of the number of spider species in an average British garden?

frits_b · #2 (**permalink**) 16-05-2010, 09:14 PM

This is going to be fun. I'll try to answer your question even though I live abroad (The Netherlands). I assume the number of species in an average garden doesn't differ so much between Holland and England.
I'd say around 50. Probably more if you count all the mini-Linyphiids living in the grass. I'll have to look into the database and check how many species I've found in my backyard so far...

An interesting question, I hope you get more feedback.

Africa · #3 (**permalink**) 16-05-2010, 10:06 PM

Thank you frits_b. I look forward to the thread as well!

jaguarondi · #4 (**permalink**) 17-05-2010, 06:48 AM

The latest newsletter of the British Arachnological Soc has an article by someone who investigated the spider species in his garden. He has found 28 species (+ another 5 found only in the house). However, he gives references to similar surveys that have recorded many more species - 129 in one case.

frits_b · #5 (**permalink**) 17-05-2010, 08:14 AM

I've checked my backyard finds and it turns out that I found 35 species so far. I've been actively looking for them for almost one year. A couple of remarks regarding this number:
Since I'm not able to identify all species, I've counted all Clubiona's as one, just like all Philodromus species except for P. dispar. The same goes for Araniella, Enoplognatha, etc.
Also, this number doesn't include all of the small (less than roughly 1.5mm) money spiders I frequently encounter.

This taken into account, I think the number I previously estimated (50) is maybe not very far from the truth. On the other hand, this number of species which may be found at a particular day of the year may be significantly lower, due to the different lifecycles of the various species.

Africa · #6 (**permalink**) 14-07-2010, 07:08 PM

I just got a lovely book 'The Ecology of a Garden' by Jennifer Owen (Cambridge University Press, 1991). She systematically trapped and recorded invertebrates in her urban Leicester garden for many years (the book shows the results of the first 15 years). She recorded 64 spider species (including 20 sp of Linyphiidae). In total, she recorded an astonishing 1782 animal species! Unfortunately, the book seems to be out of print.