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COLONY DENSITY AND DISTRIBUTION OF ANTRODIAETUS BURROWS

Abstract

Mygalomorphae is an infraorder of spiders that comprises funnel web spiders, tarantulas, and trapdoor spiders. As of right now, the infraorder contains more than 20 families and over 3000 species dating all the way back to the Middle Triassic era . Mygalomorphs are most known for their two pairs of book lungs, large downward-pointing chelicerae, and extended lifetime. Unlike members of the spider infraorder Araneomorphae (orb-weaver spiders), Mygalomorphae can live 25 years or more. During this study we looked closely at a genus of the Antrodiaetidae family, Antrodiaetus. Antrodiaetus are most commonly known as the folding door trapdoor spider because of their unique silk-lined collared burrow that folds inward to close. Antrodiaetus live a solitary lifestyle in burrows which tend to be clustered in suitable habitats. They are most commonly found on fairly moist slopes in humid woodland habitats. As with many burrowing mygalomorphs, moisture is Antrodiaetus's biggest challenge, and to combat this problem they keep their door closed to prevent their burrows from drying out. Knowing this, we hypothesized that Antrodiaetus colonies (burrow clusters) near water will have a higher number of more tightly clustered burrows than sites away from water. Additionally, we hypothesized that there would be a positive relationship between burrow diameter and spider size. To test these hypotheses we collected soil moisture and data on burrows from two different Antrodiaetus sites. One of the colonies was located on a stream bank and the other was located alongside a hiking trail. After gathering and analyzing the data, we determined that there is no significant relationship between nearest neighbor distance and habitat type. However, we found that the burrow diameter and carapace length are significantly correlated.

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