DOI: 10.5061/dryad.b8gtht7kx
title: Effects of mowing on body size patterns in spider assemblages of mesic meadows

description: Habitat disturbance affects not only the abundance, species richness and
 species composition of the local fauna, but also the body size of specific
 individuals and body size patterns in animal assemblages. Particularly
 large disturbances occur in agroecosystems, where many agricultural
 treatments are carried out. One of them, which is most commonly applied to
 grasslands and which significantly damages the habitat structure, is
 mowing. We examined the effect of mowing on mean, skewness, and kurtosis
 of the body size in epigeic spider assemblages. The research was conducted
 on mesic meadows in eastern Poland, in an agricultural landscape typical
 for this region, consisting of a mosaic of meadows, fields and forests.
 Spiders were collected using pitfall traps in two sampling periods: the
 first before mowing and the second when part of the meadows had been mown.
 Mowing had no significant effect on mean body size, skewness and kurtosis
 of the body size in epigeic spider assemblages. However, after the cut,
 mown plots showed on average significantly smaller spider species than
 unmown plots. Both the value of skewness and kurtosis significantly
 increased after mowing, but to the same extent on both the control and
 mown plots. The decrease in mean body size and increase in skewness in
 spider assemblages were mainly due to an increase in the number of small
 species from the Linyphiidae family. It is likely that these species began
 to migrate (via ballooning) during the second sampling session, following
 the start of haying, and were thus caught in traps more frequently. Our
 study showed no clear, significant changes in the body size structure of
 epigeic spiders in mown meadows compared to unmown ones, which may suggest
 that the mowing, where extensive farming is practised, does not have a
 long-term significant negative impact on this group of invertebrates.
description: Spiders were collected using pitfall traps in two 14-day sampling
 periods.
description: # Effects of mowing on body size patterns in spider assemblages of mesic
 meadows ### Author
 information Tomasz Stański - University of Siedlce, Faculty of Sciences,
 Siedlce, Poland Marzena Stańska - University of Siedlce, Faculty of
 Sciences, Siedlce, Poland Izabela Hajdamowicz - Flächenagentur
 Baden-Württemberg GmbH, Ostfildern, Germany Łukasz Nicewicz - Institute of
 Biology, Biotechnology and Environmental Protection, Faculty of Natural
 Sciences, University of Silesia in Katowice , Poland Andreas Hiller -
 Gartenstrasse 2, 73240 Wendlingen, Germany ### General Information The
 file contains data of spiders sampled using pitfall traps on mesic
 meadows. **Date of data collection:** 2013-2015. **Geographic location of
 data collection:** eastern Poland, the Lublin Province ## Description of
 the data and file structure Column “Species” – Latin name of spider
 species Column “Body size” – maximum body length value (in mm) for each
 species regardless of sex, provided in the Spiders of Europe database
 Column “Family” – the family to which the spider species belongs Column “N
 Spiders” – number of collected spiders Column “Sampling period” -  First
 (before mowing), Second (after mowing) Column “Collecting date” – The day
 the material was collected Column “Year” - The year the material was
 collected Column “No. of Trap” - Trap number - there were three traps in
 each plot Column “Plot” – The symbol of study plot Column “Control/Mown” -
 Unmown plots were treated as the Control plots, while those that were mown
 after the first sampling period were treated as the Mown plots. ##
 Sharing/Access information Please cite paper published from this data when
 available (publication in production)