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B-CILCAS
Short Title: B-CILCAS Proposal URL: http://classic.ipy.org/development/eoi/proposal-details.php?id=390 Spiders are important general predators of insects and other arthropods in all terrestrial ecosystems worldwide. In addition they are an important food source for smaller vertebrates, like birds. Therefore they act as important key nodes in the arctic food web. The proposed project aims at an extensive documentation of the current status of arctic spider biodiversity and genetic diversity and at the evaluation of climate change-driven modification of spider lifecycles. Arctic spider biodiversity has been addressed selectively, but not yet comprehensively. Nevertheless, it has been demonstrated that the assessment of spider diversity allows to conclude on the diversity of all arthropods in a given habitat. In addition, spiders, especially lycosids (wolf spiders), are valid model organisms for the monitoring of climate change impact on arctic habitats and their microclimate. In fact, spiders adapt their lifecycle frequencies to microclimatic conditions. Since in the arctic lifecycles take up to several years, changes will almost instantly be assessable by analysis of the life stages present. Our aim is to combine an arctic-wide spider biodiversity survey and the monitoring of climate induced lifecycle changes in a set of model species at several circum-arctic locations. For the first aim, surveys will be conducted at a selected set of locations, to assess data across the arctic, partly linked to existing stations and other IPY reference sites and projects. In addition, we try to extend our resolution by including students of the whole arctic via the GLOBE project. Collected specimens will be identified by spider taxonomy experts, and characterized using molecular markers for a subset of samples, to address genetic diversity. On the long-term, dynamics of species and genetic biodiversity, shall be addressed. This will allow to estimate speed of speciation in the arctic and the time of isolation between distant populations. We will extend existing field methodologies, e.g. pitfall trapping, by establishing complementary new ones, which allow direct monitoring of microclimate changes in arctic habitats. Major methodologies will be: (1) pitfall trap and hand collection, classic taxonomy, voucher specimen deposition in museum collections, assembly of a biodiversity database. (2) Microclimate measurements and correlation to biodiversity data. (3) morphometric and statistic lifecycle analysis based on pitfall trap data for selected species of the lycosids. (4) Long term RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) based remote sensing of microchip tagged spiders (lycosids) in semi-closed experimental plots, in order to address activity data, which will be correlated as a baseline to pitfall trap data and allow to record minor activities during winter and cold periods. (5) Manipulated test plots (artificial heating, etc.), in order to simulate microclimate induced lifecycle changes in lycosids directly. (6) Genetic analysis of distant populations, latitudinal and longitudinal. For most activities, instant setup at several circum-arctic locations is possible. The RFID-technique will have to be tested first at one location. At a later phase, a standardized setup can be implemented into a variety of circum-arctic locations. All data will be linked to microclimate data as well as general climate data and will be made available to the general public via databases and scientific publications.