The spiderpocalypse is upon us

Arthropod decline at the local (field) scale is largely influenced by changes at the landscape scale. 

"There is widespread evidence for a worldwide trend of insect decline, but we have much fewer data about recent temporal trends in other arthropod groups, including spiders. Spiders can be hypothesised to similarly decline because of trophic dependence on insects and being equally sensitive to local and global environmental changes. Background trends in arthropod populations can be verified if we decouple large-scale environmental transitions, such as climate change, from local factors. To provide a case study on baseline spider community trends, we observed changes in the spider community of an unsprayed alfalfa field and its margin 23 years apart under largely unchanged local conditions. We aimed to determine whether there are changes in spider abundance, species richness and mean species characteristics. Spider abundance per unit effort decreased dramatically, by 45% in alfalfa and by 59% in the margin, but species richness and most characteristics remained unchanged. Community composition in both habitats shifted and became more similar by the current study period. The population decline was especially marked in certain farmland species. We propose that in the absence of local causative factors, spider abundance decline in our study indicates a reduction of spider populations at landscape and regional scales."

Samu, F., Szita, É., Botos, E. et al. Agricultural spider decline: long-term trends under constant management conditions. Sci Rep 13, 2305 (2023) https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-29003-2 

This is why nature reserves don't work: Cooke, R., Mancini, F., Boyd, R. J., Evans, K. L., Shaw, A., Webb, T. J., & Isaac, N. J. (2023). Protected areas support more species than unprotected areas in Great Britain, but lose them equally rapidly. Biological Conservation, 278, 109884: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2022.109884