Nelsen David R, Corbit Aaron G, Chuang Angela, Deitsch John F, Sitvarin Michael I, Coyle David R
Biology and Allied Health Southern Adventist University Collegedale Tennessee USA.
Department of Entomology and Nematology University of Florida Lake Alfred Florida USA.
Ecol Evol. 2023 Nov 20;13(11):e10728. doi: 10.1002/ece3.10728. eCollection 2023 Nov.
Economic and ecological consequences of invasive species make biological invasions an influential driver of global change. Monitoring the spread and impacts of non-native species is essential, but often difficult, especially during the initial stages of invasion. The Jorō spider, (L. Koch, 1878, Araneae: Nephilidae), is a large-bodied orb weaver native to Asia, likely introduced to northern Georgia, U.S. around 2010. We investigated the nascent invasion of by constructing species distribution models (SDMs) from crowd-sourced data to compare the climate experiences in its native range to its introduced range. We found evidence that the climate of 's native range differs significantly from its introduced range. Species distribution models trained with observations from its native range predict that the most suitable habitats in North America occur north of its current introduced range. Consistent with SDM predictions, appears to be spreading faster to the north than to the south. Lastly, we conducted surveys to investigate potential ecological impacts of on the diversity of native orb weaving spiders. Importantly, was the most common and abundant species observed in the survey, and was numerically dominant at half of the sites it was present in. Our models also suggest that there is lower native orb weaver species richness and diversity closer to where was initially found and where it has been established the longest, though human population density complicates this finding. This early study is the first to forecast how widely this spider may spread in its introduced range and explore its potential ecological impacts. Our results add evidence that is an invasive species and deserves much more ecological scrutiny.
入侵物种的经济和生态后果使生物入侵成为全球变化的一个重要驱动因素。监测非本地物种的扩散和影响至关重要，但往往很困难，尤其是在入侵的初始阶段。乔罗蜘蛛（L. Koch，1878年，蜘蛛目：络新妇科）是一种原产于亚洲的大型圆网蛛，大约在2010年被引入美国佐治亚州北部。我们通过利用众包数据构建物种分布模型（SDM）来调查乔罗蜘蛛的新生入侵情况，以比较其原生范围和引入范围的气候经历。我们发现有证据表明乔罗蜘蛛原生范围的气候与其引入范围有显著差异。用其原生范围的观测数据训练的物种分布模型预测，北美最适宜的栖息地出现在其当前引入范围以北。与物种分布模型的预测一致，乔罗蜘蛛似乎向北扩散的速度比向南更快。最后，我们进行了调查，以研究乔罗蜘蛛对本地圆网蛛多样性的潜在生态影响。重要的是，乔罗蜘蛛是调查中观察到的最常见和数量最多的物种，在所出现的一半地点在数量上占主导地位。我们的模型还表明，在最初发现乔罗蜘蛛的地方以及其建立时间最长的地方附近，本地圆网蛛的物种丰富度和多样性较低，尽管人口密度使这一发现变得复杂。这项早期研究首次预测了这种蜘蛛在其引入范围内可能扩散的范围，并探讨了其潜在的生态影响。我们的结果进一步证明乔罗蜘蛛是一种入侵物种，值得更多的生态审查。
