From Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network
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Direct observations of foraging wolf spiders and dunnarts

Created 25/06/2025

Updated 25/06/2025

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The lesser hairy-footed dunnart (Sminthopsis youngsoni, Dasyuridae) is a generalist marsupial insectivore in arid Australia, but consumes wolf spiders (Lycosa spp., Lycosidae) disproportionately often relative to their availability. This project tested the hypothesis that this disproportionate predation is a product of frequent encounter rates between the interactants due to high overlap in their diets and use of space and time. This data set focuses on dietary overlap, with diet and predatory behaviour of wolf spiders (Lycosa spp.), the lesser hairy-footed dunnart (Sminthopsis youngsoni) and prowling spiders (Miturga spp., which represent other common invertebrate predators) were determined by tracking individuals and directly observing prey captures. Seventeen wolf spiders, 10 prowling spiders and 5 dunnarts were captured from Main Camp site in the Simpson Desert, south-western Queensland during 2016 with 30, 13 and 13 direct prey captures witnessed for each species respectively. This data is used for calculating overlap between prey taxa and prey size between these predators using the symmetrical version of MacArthur and Levin's and Pianka's overlap equation. However, it can also be used as a case study for calculating overlap between other species-groups.

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Additional Info

Field Value
Title Direct observations of foraging wolf spiders and dunnarts
Language eng
Licence Not Specified
Landing Page https://data.gov.au/data/dataset/19ed31ca-8aab-4cb3-ad6c-f36e1ef69c2a
Contact Point
Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network�s Data Discovery
tamara.potter@adelaide.edu.au
Reference Period 01/04/2016 - 23/10/2016
Geospatial Coverage
Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors
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      ],
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Data Portal Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network

Data Source

This dataset was originally found on Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network "Direct observations of foraging wolf spiders and dunnarts". Please visit the source to access the original metadata of the dataset:
https://geonetwork.tern.org.au/geonetwork/srv/eng/csw/dataset/direct-observations-of-foraging-wolf-spiders-and-dunnarts