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Study offers insight into the behavior of spiders who prey on sleeping pollinating insects

April 19th, 2023

Not so sweet after all: Are candy-striped spiders a threat to ecosystems across North America? — Death scene at dawn. A candy-striped spider bites the leg of a thread-waisted wasp (Ammophila sp.), while three other thread-waisted wasps (Prionyx canadensis [Provancher, 1887]) hang lifeless nearby. The spider and her victims are connected by a network of silk threads decorating two dead flower heads of a Puget Sound Gumweed (Grindelia integrifolia DC). This is not a capture web but evidence of the spider's previous movements. Mixed groups of hymenopterans like these four sphecid wasps commonly sleep together on dead vegetation at our field site on coastal Vancouver Island, BC, Canada. Credit: S. McCann

For years, pollinator declines have been a pressing issue for ecosystem health and food security in the face of climate change and human impacts on the environment. Even in their sleep, pollinating insects cannot catch a break—for fear they'll be taken down by a small but mighty predator: the candy-striped spider.

New research published in Ecology has taken a closer look into this spider's behavior and found that the result of their stealth attacks could have substantial impacts on ecosystems.

Most likely accidentally introduced to both the East and West Coasts a little over a century ago, the candy-striped spider is a common spider in North America. The spider's striking color varieties have attracted much research into their genetics, but before now very little was known about their behavior.

"This common spider previously flew under the radar of researchers in North America and almost nothing was known about its diet and behavior," explains Catherine Scott, a Postdoctoral Fellow in McGill's Department of Natural Resource Sciences and co-author of the study. "We documented their diet and predation behavior in the field and learned that they use a variety of tactics to take down prey much larger than themselves, including sleeping bees and wasps."

While these spiders may have negative effects on pollinators, they may have positive effects of preying on insects that are pests of agricultural crops. In terms of next steps, the researchers will investigate candy-striped spiders in food webs of agro-ecosystems in southern Quebec.

"At a time where the world is facing a biodiversity crisis that includes unprecedented declines of insect pollinators, future studies will help determine whether their benefits as natural pest-controllers outweigh their negative impacts as predators of pollinators," says Scott.

More information:
Catherine E. Scott & Sean McCann, They mostly come at night: Predation on sleeping insects by introduced candy-striped spiders in North America, Ecology (2023). DOI: 10.1002/ecy.4025

Provided by McGill University

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