I am working in this field in close co-operation
with Dr Gabriele Stippich.
We have shown that catches of spiders obtained from emergence traps are well suited to describe spider communities; in fact, such catches appear to give a more balanced picture of spider communities than do other trapping methods (Hövemeyer & Stippich 2000).

Using catches from the five habitats (see Diptera), we analysed community structure of spiders (in prep.). As in the Diptera, it proved to be important to look at individual ecological groups in isolation.

I also tested various hypotheses on small-scale species density of spiders. It turned out that species densities of those ecological groups of spiders, who could be expected to utilize habitat structures in a way similar to dipteran zoophages, varied in parallel with that of zoophagous Diptera in the woody habitats(Hövemeyer 2002).