Phenology of linyphiids in an old-growth deciduous forest in central Alberta, Canada

Spiders in the family Linyphiidae are numerically dominant and show remarkably high diversity in northern forests, but relatively little is known about their phenology in northern latitudes of North America. We report a phenological summary of close to 6,000 individual linyphiids representing 17 species. These were collected by pitfall trapping during two snow-free seasons in an old-growth deciduous boreal forest in central Alberta, Canada. Three species of approximately the same body size, Allomengea dentisetis (Grube 1861), Bathyphantes pallidus (Banks 1892), and Lepthyphantes intricatus (Emerton 1911), dominated the sample, and showed three distinct patterns of peak activity. This suggests temporal stratification as a possible mechanism that explains their co-existence. Four less commonly collected species within the same genus (Walckenaeria) showed similar seasonal segregation in periods of peak activity. Comparisons with other literature suggest the general phenology of many linyphiids is conserved across continental and global scales.