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Spiders are a highly diversified group of arthropods and play an important role in terrestrial ecosystems as ubiquitous predators, which makes them a suitable group to test a variety of eco-evolutionary hypotheses. For this purpose, knowledge of a diverse range of species traits is required. Until now, data on spider traits have been scattered across thousands of publications produced for over two centuries and written in diverse languages. To facilitate access to such data, we developed an online database for archiving and accessing spider traits at a global scale. The database has been designed to accommodate a great variety of traits (e.g. ecological, behavioural and morphological) measured at individual, species or higher taxonomic levels. Records are accompanied by extensive metadata (e.g. location and method). The database is curated by an expert team, regularly updated and open to any user. A future goal of the growing database is to include all published and unpublished data on spider traits provided by experts worldwide and to facilitate broad cross-taxon assays in functional ecology and comparative biology. Database URL: https://spidertraits.sci.muni.cz/

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The semideciduous Atlantic Forest is one of the most diverse ecosystems in the world with a great diversity of spiders. Most spider-related studies in this ecosystem focused on species richness and composition; however, little is known about their trait diversity (including morphological, ecological and/or physiological traits). Two main datasets were compiled to generate a complete record of spider traits for this ecosystem. Here, we present two datasets about 259 species of spiders from the semideciduous Atlantic Forest of Argentina. The trait data set compiled information of morphological and ecological traits such as body size, femur length, ocular distance, foraging strategy, prey range, circadian activity and stratum preference; traits were assessed by species considering sexual dimorphism. The second dataset included information about phenology (season when spiders were collected), number of individuals assessed by species and presence/absence of spiders in the different sample sites. This dataset has high potential to help researchers in recording the state of a component of biodiversity (functional) and contributes with the study of ecosystem services and species conservation.

Orthobula Simon, 1897 is a group of very small litter-dwelling spiders with a tropical and subtropical distribution. The genus comprises 18 species, without any records in the Neotropical realm yet. Here we describe O. sudamericana sp. nov., distributed in Argentina and Paraguay. The new species appears to be most closely related to O. chayuensis Yang, Song and Zhu, 2003. The male also resembles O. charitonovi (Mikhailov, 1986). Orthobula sudamericana sp. nov. females differ from these species by the straight and parallel insemination ducts, and males by the centrally located, U-shaped sperm duct. Further, we summarize details on its natural history and habitat characteristics.

1. Worldwide, natural ecosystems have been replaced by intensive productive systems. This has led to an extreme simplification of habitat structure and loss of ecosystem heterogeneity but also might reduce the opportunities for species cooccurrence.2. Anthropogenic disturbances offer an opportunity to explore how the functional diversity of spiders within a highly diverse ecosystem such as a subtropical forest change under intensive productive systems such as monoculture tree plantations. It allows to study the mechanisms underlying the community re-assemblage process.3. Using a set of morphological and ecological traits of 259 species, the habitat filtering hypothesis was tested on spider communities inhabiting pine monocultures at different ages, where the stabilisation of habitat conditions such as vegetation complexity, maximum temperature/relative humidity and prey availability along the plantation cycle growth will promote spider colonisation of these productive areas.4. The conversion of native forest to pine monocultures decreased species and trait richness of spiders. Moreover, spiders from both communities differed in their identity but exhibited similar functional traits (low trait replacement). Variation in trait composition of spiders was explained by changes in vertical stratification complexity, tree density and relative humidity, rather than prey availability. 5. The mechanistic processes structuring the spider community were not clear. Spiders from pine plantations might experience frequent changes in composition due to high species replacement levels in space and time. Because pine plantations harbour only a few species and exhibit low functional richness, the pressure for stabilisation of community composition can be low.

Amidst a global biodiversity crisis, the word “biodiversity” has become indispensable for practical conservation, including as a normative term. Yet, biodiversity is often used as a buzzword in scientific literature. Resonant titles promoting to have studied “global biodiversity” may then be used to oversell research that is narrow-focused on a limited sample of taxonomic groups, regions, or habitats. We selected a random sample of ~900 papers with the word “biodiversity” in their title to take a long view of the use and misuse of this term. We analyzed the degree to which studies actually consider different taxonomic groups and biodiversity facets and how all of this translates to the impact of a paper. As many as 22% of the articles used the term biodiversity in the title but did not measure it at any level. Among the articles sampling biodiversity directly, the proportion of biodiversity investigated was systematically low. We documented a decrease in the taxonomic scope of articles in recent years, especially those relying on big data. This is in stark contrast with the parallel advances in analytical tools, monitoring technologies, and the availability of data. Importantly, studies with general titles (i.e., using the word “biodiversity” without mentioning any taxa, habitat, or region) attract more citations and online attention (Altmetric), but only when they also have a wider taxonomic scope. Our results have broad ramifications for understanding how the extrapolation from studies with narrow taxonomic scope shapes our view of global biodiversity patterns and poorly informs conservation practices.