Observing spiders in “nature” allowed me to realize how effective and important spiders are to an ecosystem. Usually, one won’t find much on a web found indoors, but the webs observed outdoors were filled with many different insects, especially small mosquitoes. This highlights how important spiders are since mosquitoes are notorious for carrying different types of viruses and diseases. Since spiders help control the population of mosquitoes, they essentially protect their ecosystem from disease and viruses. Also, they protect the flora of an region by capturing other insects that may disrupt plant life.
During my observations, I noticed that spiders act as “lone predators.” All the spiders I observed were by themselves. From my research, unlike ants, spiders do not live in groups to survive. Spiders tend to work alone, and cooperation is very rare. In fact, many spiders that come across each other will kill each other. Generally, spiders will only be in groups when they are young-- They will hang around the mother until they have grown enough to survive on their own, some even killing their own mother.
It seems that spiders that have better “web placement” the best chance of survival. Web placement is important because it needs to be hidden enough to not be disturbed, but also placed in an area open enough to “attract” its prey. During my observations, certain webs had more captured prey than others. It seemed that the more hidden a web, the less prey was captured. Although there may be a “risk” to leaving a web out in the open-- even though there may be more captured prey, the web may be disturbed before the spider comes collects in prey.
One observation I noticed was that during the day there were much less spiders in “open” areas. In fact, I was only able to find one spider which was hidden beneath a rock. During night time, I went to the same locations, and was able to to find over 30 spiders in relatively open areas with the help of a flash light. In addition to being nocturnal, it is also easier for them to catch their prey at night as most insects are not able to see the spiders’ webs. Also, many of the spiders’ predators (birds, lizards, monkeys are active during the day, and rest at night.
