Can Gap-Cutting Help to Preserve Forest Spider Communities?

Continuous cover forestry maintains many characteristics of uneven-aged natural forests and aims to preserve biodiversity. Gap-cutting is a management option that may create a balance between timber production and continuous forest cover. We investigated the effect of newly created gaps on ground-dwelling spider assemblages in a managed oak forest, in the Pilis Mts., Hungary. Between 2018–2021 we sampled newly created elongated and circular-shaped gaps of two different sizes in a six-times replicated randomised complete block design. Pitfall samples of ~4600 spiders indicated that spider species richness was moderately higher in the gaps than in control stands. Spider assemblages did not respond in a specific way to the different gap implementations, but their variation in species composition was considerably higher in gaps than in the control plots. The excess spider abundance and species number in gaps, as compared to control, increased over the observation period, as did the dissimilarity of gap assemblages to control. Species responses imply that gaps create a variation in microhabitats and microclimatic conditions, resulting in spiders’ diversification. The overall effect of gaps on spider assemblages suggests that gap-cutting is a suitable management option that preserves forest spider assemblages

Can Gap-Cutting Help to Preserve Forest Spider Communities?

Continuous cover forestry maintains many characteristics of uneven-aged natural forests and aims to preserve biodiversity. Gap-cutting is a management option that may create a balance between timber production and continuous forest cover. We investigated the effect of newly created gaps on ground-dwelling spider assemblages in a managed oak forest, in the Pilis Mts., Hungary. Between 2018–2021 we sampled newly created elongated and circular-shaped gaps of two different sizes in a six-times replicated randomised complete block design. Pitfall samples of ~4600 spiders indicated that spider species richness was moderately higher in the gaps than in control stands. Spider assemblages did not respond in a specific way to the different gap implementations, but their variation in species composition was considerably higher in gaps than in the control plots. The excess spider abundance and species number in gaps, as compared to control, increased over the observation period, as did the dissimilarity of gap assemblages to control. Species responses imply that gaps create a variation in microhabitats and microclimatic conditions, resulting in spiders’ diversification. The overall effect of gaps on spider assemblages suggests that gap-cutting is a suitable management option that preserves forest spider assemblages

Resilience of spider communities affected by a range of silvicultural treatments in a temperate deciduous forest stand

To secure the ecosystem services forests provide, it is important to understand how diferent management practices impact various components of these ecosystems. We aimed to uncover how silvicultural treatments affected the ground-dwelling spider communities during the first five years of a forest ecological experiment. In an oak-hornbeam forest stand, five treatments, belonging to clear-cutting, shelterwood and continuous cover forestry systems, were implemented using randomised complete block design. Spiders were sampled by pitfall traps, and detailed vegetation, soil and microclimate data were collected throughout the experiment. In the treatment plots spider abundance and species richness increased marginally. Species composition changes were more pronounced and treatment specific, initially diverging from the control plots, but becoming more similar again by the fifth year. These changes were correlated mostly to treatment-related light intensity and humidity gradients. The patchy implementation of the treatments induced modest increase in both gamma and beta diversity of spiders in the stand. Overall, spiders gave a prompt and species specific response to treatments that was by the fifth year showing signs of relatively quick recovery to pre-treatment state. At the present fine scale of implementation the magnitude of changes was not diferent among forestry treatments, irrespective of their severity