caa a22 4500 469096462 CHVBK 20180323133032.0 cr unu---uuuuu 170328e19921101xx s 000 0 eng 10.1007/BF00317367 doi (NATIONALLICENCE)springer-10.1007/BF00317367 Cursorial spiders and succession: age or habitat structure? [Elektronische Daten] [L. Hurd, W. Fagan] Summary: The structure of cursorial spider assemblages was examined along a gradient of four temperature successional communities. Species diversity (H′), richness (S), and evenness (J′) exhibited a dichotomy between herbaceous and woody communities rather than a progressive change with community age: all three parameters were higher in the two younger fields than in the two older woodlands, which is contrary to conventional successional theory. Species importance curves were steeper in the two woody communities. The breadth of the distribution of adult body lengths was greater in the two herbaceous communities. Indices of community similarity revealed neither a successional trend nor the vegetative dichotomy. We suggest the hypothesis that habitat structure is a more important determinant of cursorial spider diversity than successional age per se, and that the switch in dominance from herbaceous to woody vegetation is the critical change. We further suggest that competition for prey is more important to cursorial spiders in early successional (herbaceous) communities, because of a switch in the limiting resource from prey in these communities to the amount of accumulating litter (a spatial resource) in older woody stands. This may explain the greater variation in adult body size of these generalist predators in the two younger communities. Springer-Verlag, 1992 Cursorial spiders nationallicence Succession nationallicence Species diversity nationallicence Community structure nationallicence Predator assemblages nationallicence Hurd L. Ecology Program, School of Life Sciences, University of Delaware, 19716, Newark, DE, USA aut Fagan W. Ecology Program, School of Life Sciences, University of Delaware, 19716, Newark, DE, USA aut Oecologia Springer-Verlag 92/2(1992-11-01), 215-221 0029-8549 92:2<215 1992 92 442 https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00317367 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI 1 research-article jats NATIONALLICENCE 856 40 https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00317367 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Hurd L. Ecology Program, School of Life Sciences, University of Delaware, 19716, Newark, DE, USA aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Fagan W. Ecology Program, School of Life Sciences, University of Delaware, 19716, Newark, DE, USA aut NATIONALLICENCE 773 0- Oecologia Springer-Verlag 92/2(1992-11-01), 215-221 0029-8549 92:2<215 1992 92 442 Metadata rights reserved Springer special CC-BY-NC licence nationallicence BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 NATIONALLICENCE NATIONALLICENCE NL-springer