Spiders as natural DNA samplers recover arthropod community diversity and biotic interactions across space and time
- 1Universitat Trier
Abstract
Global arthropod decline demands effective biodiversity monitoring strategies. However, most current monitoring approaches do not provide an exhaustive picture of arthropod community structure. In particular, biotic interactions and temporal patterns of biodiversity change are still poorly understood. Here we explore the possibility of addressing these two shortfalls using spiders, one of the most important predators of terrestrial arthropods, as natural samplers for arthropod community DNA. We conducted several experiments comparing the recovered community composition between spider gut contents and traditional monitoring methods. Additionally, we used archived spiders from long-term collections to assess the preservation of prey DNA over time. Spiders proved to be highly efficient natural DNA samplers, with gut content metabarcoding revealing similar community composition and alpha- and beta-diversity like traditional methods. Unique arthropod taxa were detected by spider gut contents and traditional methods respectively, indicating that these two approaches can serve as valuable complements to each other. Well-preserved archived spiders effectively reconstructed historical diets up to 20 years back in time, showing that historical spider collections can act as time capsules of the wider diversity that occurred in the spider's habitat. Spiders as natural samplers overcome critical shortfalls in biodiversity monitoring and contribute to our future understanding of community assembly across space and time.
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BibTeX
@misc{weber2026spiders,
title = {{Spiders as natural DNA samplers recover arthropod community diversity and biotic interactions across space and time}},
author = {S. Weber and A. C. Melcher and J. Calaor and S. R. Kennedy and D. Gajski and T. Hoerrmann and A. Schmidt and L. Melzl and F. Meiss and J. Hans and L. Mahla and M. Stothut and D. Harms and K. Birkhofer and E. P. Economo and H. Rogers and R. Gillespie and G. Roderick and H. Krehenwinkel},
howpublished = {bioRxiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.64898/2026.10.05.756666},
url = {https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.10.05.756666v1},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Spiders as natural DNA samplers recover arthropod community diversity and biotic interactions across space and time
AU - S. Weber
AU - A. C. Melcher
AU - J. Calaor
AU - S. R. Kennedy
AU - D. Gajski
AU - T. Hoerrmann
AU - A. Schmidt
AU - L. Melzl
AU - F. Meiss
AU - J. Hans
AU - L. Mahla
AU - M. Stothut
AU - D. Harms
AU - K. Birkhofer
AU - E. P. Economo
AU - H. Rogers
AU - R. Gillespie
AU - G. Roderick
AU - H. Krehenwinkel
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/05
PB - bioRxiv
DO - 10.64898/2026.10.05.756666
UR - https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.10.05.756666v1
AB - Global arthropod decline demands effective biodiversity monitoring strategies. However, most current monitoring approaches do not provide an exhaustive picture of arthropod community structure. In particular, biotic interactions and temporal patterns of biodiversity change are still poorly understood. Here we explore the possibility of addressing these two shortfalls using spiders, one of the most important predators of terrestrial arthropods, as natural samplers for arthropod community DNA. We conducted several experiments comparing the recovered community composition between spider gut contents and traditional monitoring methods. Additionally, we used archived spiders from long-term collections to assess the preservation of prey DNA over time. Spiders proved to be highly efficient natural DNA samplers, with gut content metabarcoding revealing similar community composition and alpha- and beta-diversity like traditional methods. Unique arthropod taxa were detected by spider gut contents and traditional methods respectively, indicating that these two approaches can serve as valuable complements to each other. Well-preserved archived spiders effectively reconstructed historical diets up to 20 years back in time, showing that historical spider collections can act as time capsules of the wider diversity that occurred in the spider's habitat. Spiders as natural samplers overcome critical shortfalls in biodiversity monitoring and contribute to our future understanding of community assembly across space and time.
ER -