Methods and Study Design
The study will take place in summer 2018 in Oak Park, IL, and other nearby communities. We are looking for all kinds of gardens where we can conduct our research. If we can find enough samples of each, we would like to focus on the following kinds of gardens:
During each visit, we will conduct visual searches for spiders for approximately 30 minutes. These searches will be assisted by lightly sprinkling corn starch over areas of the garden, which makes webs highly visible. The cornstarch does not harm plants or spiders and rinses off easily with water. We will return to each garden 2-4 times over the summer, with several weeks between each visit.
To ensure that our methods are rigorous and replicatable, we will need to collect some spiders from gardens. In some cases, we will collect spiders that we cannot identify in the field. In other cases, we will collect spiders to serve as voucher specimens. If are not comfortable with us collecting spiders from your garden, please let us know.
We are still working out the details of our study design, so some of the methods described above might change slightly in the months leading up to data collection. We will make sure all participants have up-to-date information about our methods before we begin collecting data.
- Gardens with mostly native plantings and little/no turf grass
- Gardens with mostly non-native plantings and little/no turf grass
- Gardens with mostly turf grass
During each visit, we will conduct visual searches for spiders for approximately 30 minutes. These searches will be assisted by lightly sprinkling corn starch over areas of the garden, which makes webs highly visible. The cornstarch does not harm plants or spiders and rinses off easily with water. We will return to each garden 2-4 times over the summer, with several weeks between each visit.
To ensure that our methods are rigorous and replicatable, we will need to collect some spiders from gardens. In some cases, we will collect spiders that we cannot identify in the field. In other cases, we will collect spiders to serve as voucher specimens. If are not comfortable with us collecting spiders from your garden, please let us know.
We are still working out the details of our study design, so some of the methods described above might change slightly in the months leading up to data collection. We will make sure all participants have up-to-date information about our methods before we begin collecting data.