Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 07/11/2013 - 17:14
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Predatory Spiders in the Arctic Food Web 2013

Hello Nell,

I do not know if this question has already been addressed. However, I would like to ask if the rainy weather affect the amount of spiders that are collected on rainy days? If so, how? Also, how does a wet day spider count compare to a dry day spider count?

Christal James-Walker Expedition Green MSI Teacher Workshop

Thu, 07/11/2013 - 20:16

Nell Kemp

Hi Christal, Weather absolutely affects spider activity! On days when it is rainy or cloudy we tend not to go out in the field because the spiders are inactive. We generally don't collect spiders every day anyway, so it doesn't end up being a problem. A lot of the spiders we collect are through the pitfall traps, which kills them. We will be doing a live pitfall trap collection this weekend, and one of our concerns was when to set the traps to optimize weather conditions!
Great question!