Plant-animal interactions between carnivorous plants, sheet-web spiders, and ground-running spiders as guild predators in a wet meadow community

Plant-animal interactions are diverse and wide-spread shaping ecology, evolution and biodiversity of most ecological communities.  Carnivorous plants are unusual in that they can be simultaneously engaged with animals in multiple mutualistic and antagonistic interactions including reversed plant-animal interactions where they are the predator.  Competition with animals is a potential antagonistic plant-animal interaction unique to carnivorous plants when they and animal predators consume the same prey.

The goal of this field study was to test the hypothesis that under natural conditions, sundews and spiders are predators consuming the same prey thus creating an environment where interkingdom competition can occur.

Over 12 months, we collected data on 15 dates in the only protected Highland Rim Wet Meadow Ecosystem in Kentucky where sundews, sheet-web spiders and ground-running spiders co-exist.  One each sampling day, we attempted to locate fifteen sites with: 1) both sheet-web sp...