Data and code for: River noise alters orb-weaving spider abundance, web size, and prey capture

Novel anthropogenic noise has received considerable attention in behavioral ecology, but natural acoustic environments have largely been ignored as ecological niche axes. In riparian sites, within an arid sagebrush steppe ecosystem, we use a natural range of acoustic environments along with experimentally broadcasted whitewater river noise to test our hypothesis that river noise is an important niche axis. We show that orb-weaving spiders (Araneidae and Tetragnathidae) are more abundant in high sound level environments, but do not seem to be affected by the background noise spectrum. We explore multiple hypotheses for these patterns, such as loss of vertebrate predators and increased prey capture, and then assess how web-building behavior and body condition may be altered. Here, we demonstrate that river noise has the potential to alter spider abundance and behavior.新型人为噪声在行为生态学领域已受到广泛关注，但自然声环境作为生态位轴（ecological niche axes）却在很大程度上被忽视了。本研究于干旱蒿灌草原生态系统的河岸生境中，通过设置梯度自然声环境与实验播放的急流河川噪声，验证“河川噪声是重要生态位轴”这一假说。研究结果显示，结网蜘蛛（园蛛科Araneidae及长脚蛛科Tetragnathidae）在高声级环境中的丰度更高，但似乎不受背景噪声频谱的影响。针对上述结果模式，本研究探讨了脊椎动物捕食者消失、猎物捕获量提升等多种潜在假说，并评估了结网行为与身体状况可能发生的变化。本研究证实，河川噪声具备改变蜘蛛丰度与行为的潜在能力。