Snakes – birds = spiders? Guam’s wacked-out ecosystems – Futurity.org

Ecologists have found as many as 40 times more spiders in Guam’s remote jungle than are found on nearby islands. In some places, a dense fabric of webs fills gaps between trees in the jungle canopy.(Credit: Isaac Chellman)

In one of the first studies to examine how the loss of forest birds is affecting Guam’s island ecosystem, biologists from Rice University, the University of Washington, and the University of Guam found that the Pacific island’s jungles have as many as 40 times more spiders than are found on nearby islands like Saipan. CoEnv’s Joshua Tewksbury is a co-author on this study; read more here, or check out the original publication!