ANTI‐HERBIVORE PROTECTION BY MUTUALISTIC SPIDERS AND THE ROLE OF PLANT GLANDULAR TRICHOMES

Although specific associations between spiders and particular types of plants have been reported for several taxonomic groups, their consequences for spiders and plants are still poorly understood. The most common South American lynx spiders, Peucetia flava and P. rubrolineata , live strictly associated with various plant species that have glandular trichomes. To understand more about these spider–plant relationships, we investigated the influence of the spiders on the fitness of a neotropical glandular shrub ( Trichogoniopsis adenantha ) and on the arthropod community structure on the plant. We also tested whether glandular hairs provided any benefit to the spiders. Spiders reduced the abundance of several species and guilds of herbivores on the leaves and inflorescences. Consequently, damage to the leaves, capitula, ovaries, corollas, and stigmas caused by leaf‐mining and chewing insects, as well as endophagous insects, were strongly reduced in the presence of Peucetia spp. Although the spiders fed on flower visitors, their negative influence on ovary fertilization was only marginally nonsignificant ( P = 0.065). Spiders on plants of Trichogoniopsis adenantha that fed on common fruit flies that had died before adhering to the glandular trichomes did not lose body mass. However, those living on plants without stalked glandular trichomes ( Melissa officinalis ) did not feed on dead flies and lost 13–20% of their biomass. These results indicate that Peucetia spiders are effective plant bodyguards and that when there is limited live prey they may feed on insect carcasses adhered to glandular trichomes. Since several spider species of the genus Peucetia live strictly associated with glandular trichome‐bearing plants in neotropical, Neartic, Paleartic, and Afrotropical regions, this type of facultative mutualism involving Peucetia and glandular plants may be common worldwide.