Muswellbrook High students collecting data on the Ravensworth site. Photo: F Irving © F Irving.
About the project
On the 29th November 2007, BugWise delivered a workshop at Muswellbrook High School as part of an Environment Day organised by the school’s staff. Thirty-five students and teachers participated in a tutorial on the importance of invertebrates in the environment, which was followed by a 2-hour training session on how to use the Web2Spider method.
BugWise is working with science teacher Fiona Irving who is actively involved with a cooperative, environmentally-based education programme on 10 hectares of previously cleared land within the Newpac No.1 Colliery, owned and operated by Resource Pacific Limited, at Ravensworth, near Singleton. Fiona and her students plan to use the Web2Spider guide to monitor the impacts of revegetation on web richness.
Results and Discussion
So far, surveys have been collected on two occasions (Dec 19, 2007 and Feb 12, 2008). A total of 79 webs were counted on the reclaimed mine site, and a total of 11 different web types were identified. A greater number and diversity were recorded on the first sampling occasion, though variability indicated this may not have been a significant trend (See figures below). The most common web types were W32 (32% of total web abundance) and W30 (25% of total web abundance). Six web types (W11, W19, W24, W25, W26, W30) were found on the first sampling occasion but not on the second occasion, while only 2 web types (W2, W7) were found at the second sampling time, but not the first.
This project is unique to the BugWise Outreach ’07 project because it is a study of primary succession. Continued regular monitoring of the temporal trends in web diversity and abundance at the reclaimed site will shed light on the development of spider communities at all stages of ecosystem development, as well as trends in seasonal patterns.
yay
Posted by: Anonymous (not verified)
i am in the photo yay!!!!!!!Date: May 7th, 2008
Time: 14.02:13
Hi Fiona and
Posted by: JohnG
Hi Fiona and students, Great observations! Web-building spiders are known for their ability to detect vibrations from potential prey items in the environment. The idea is that when there is not much prey around (so few vibrations acting as cues), they won’t build webs (a waste of energy!). But if this was the case - you might expect that spiders would build lots of webs with all those vibrations around! However, perhaps this is just too much noise for them! You may have 'stumbled' across a possible impact of mining infrastructure (ie the conveyor) on web-building spiders. Remember that there are always alternative explanations and you have posed one, ie that differences could be due to aspect. Although I would not think that this matters. But regardless of the reasons for differences, and if you are interested in pursuing this more, you really need to design a survey to test the 'casual observation' (because that’s all it is at the moment) that there are more webs (or more web diversity) on the southern side of a hill than the northern side. So this would require replication of sites of northern and southern sites. If I were you, I would do a very quick scout around at some northern sites (away from the conveyor) and at some southern sites. Replication of sites is the key!!!!! This will give you a better idea of whether the conveyor may be really having an impact, wether aspect is important or that your observations would not be supported by more rigorous sampling. I am very interested in this idea and if you want to pursue this more, I am happy to consult, and I may be able to make a trip up there. Good luck and let me know how you go! JohnDate: March 4th, 2008
Time: 14.19:27
An observation and a resulting question
Posted by: Fiona Irving (not verified)
Hi John and colleagues, The students and I went on site today to do our second survey. Our first survey concentrated on the southern side of our site. We re-visited the southern side today but also visited the northern side. The southern side had many many visible webs (data to be sent soon!!), all over, in the trees but also in the grassed areas. The northern side was strangely lacking. There were very few webs, those that were present were mainly little tangle and lace webs, very close into the tree bark. There is a very noisy conveyor belt that runs almost constantly just a matter of metres from this section of the site. We were wondering if this could be a factor in the reduced web numbers or might it be the northerly, thus hotter aspect? The kids and I could feel the vibrations from the conveyor in the wire of the surrounding fences and wondered if these vibrations could be an issue for spiders relying on the vibrations of insects landing in their webs. Eagerly waiting ideas, Fiona IrvingDate: March 4th, 2008
Time: 11.57:02
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