IPFS News Link • Science
Urban Spiders Scaling Up
• arcleinTo measure urbanization, the authors looked primarily at ground cover throughout the city, at several scales, where they collected each spider: Are surfaces mostly paved? Is there a lack of natural vegetation? Lawns as opposed to leaf litter? "The landscape characteristics most associated with larger size of spiders were hard surfaces (concrete, roads etc) and lack of vegetation," said Elizabeth Lowe, a Ph.D student studying arachnids at the University of Sydney.