Spiders (Arachnida: Araneae) of the Canadian Prairies

Héctor Cárcamo1, Jaime Pinzón2, Robin Leech3, John Spence2, David Shorthouse4

1 Lethbridge Research Centre, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, 5403 - 1 Avenue South, T1J 4B1, Lethbridge, Canada; 2 Department of Renewable Resources, University of Alberta, 751 General Services Building, T6G 2H1, Edmonton, Canada; 3 Edmonton, Canada; 4 Université de Montréal Biodiversity Centre, 4101 rue Sherbrooke est, H1X 2B2, Montréal, Canada

Corresponding author(s): Héctor Cárcamo (hector.carcamo@agr.gc.ca)

Received {date}; Revised {date}; Accepted {date}; Published {date}

Citation: Combination of authors, year of data paper publication (in parentheses), Title, Journal Name, Volume, Issue number (in parentheses), and doi of the data paper.

Resource Citation

Cárcamo, H., J. Pinzón, R. Leech, and J. Spence. 2014. Data for Spiders (Arachnida: Araneae) of the Canadian Prairies. http://dx.doi.org/10.5886/qwco8c3a doi:10.5886/qwco8c3a

Abstract

Spiders are the 7th most diverse order of arthropods globally and are prominent predators in all prairie habitats. In this chapter a checklist for the spiders of the prairie provinces (751 species), and surrounding jurisdictions (44 species) is presented along with an overview of all 26 families that occur in the region. Eighteen of the species from the region are adventive. Linyphiidae is by far the dominant family representing 39% of all the species. Lycosidae and Gnaphosidae each represent 8% and three other families account each for 7% (Salticidae, Dyctinidae and Theridiidae). Furthermore, a summary of all biodiversity studies conducted in the Prairies Ecozone and a selection of studies in adjacent transition ecoregions is provided. The Mixed Grassland Ecoregion has the most distinctive assemblage; Schizocosa mccooki and Zelotes lasalanus are common and unique to this ecoregion. Other ecoregions appear to harbour less distinctive assemblages but most ecoregions have been poorly studied. Lack of professional opportunities for spider systematists in Canada remains a major barrier to the advancement of the taxonomy and ecology of this fascinating group of arthropods.

Keywords: Checklist, Inventoryregional, Araneae, checklist, taxonomy, Canada, provinces, prairies, open data

Taxonomic coverage

Taxonomic ranks
Order: Araneae
Common names: spiders

Spatial coverage

General spatial coverage: Canadian Prairies
Coordinates: 49°21'36''N and 59°16'48''N Latitude; 118°6'36''W and 93°21'36''W Longitude 

Datasets

Dataset description
Object name: Darwin Core Archive Spiders (Arachnida: Araneae) of the Canadian Prairies
Character encoding: UTF-8
Format name: Darwin Core Archive format
Format version: 1.0
Distribution: http://data.canadensys.net/ipt/archive.do?r=acg-araneae
Publication date of data: 2014-09-15
Language: English
Licenses of use: http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ & http://www.canadensys.net/norms

Metadata language: English
Date of metadata creation: 2013-10-01
Hierarchy level: Dataset

References
Cárcamo H., J. Pinzón, R. Leech, and J. Spence. 2014. Spiders (Arachnida: Araneae) of the Canadian Prairies. In Arthropods of Canadian Grasslands (Volume 3): Biodiversity and Systematics Part 1. Edited by H. A. Cárcamo and D. J. Giberson. Biological Survey of Canada. pp. 75-137.  http://dx.doi.org/10.3752/9780968932162.ch4 doi:10.3752/9780968932162.ch4