Urban Spider Diversity in Los Angeles Assessed Using a Community Science Approach

Spiders are ubiquitous organisms in all but the most hostile terrestrial environments and are frequently encountered in urban areas. Assessing spider diversity in cities can require a significant investment of time and resources because the majority of the land is privately owned and fragmented into thousands of difficult-to-access properties. To overcome these challenges, the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County began the Los Angeles Spider Survey in May 2002. This project, using a community (= citizen) science collecting approach, attempts to inventory the fauna and assess the prevalence of introduced spiders in the greater Los Angeles area. Through 2016, a total of 6,896 spiders have been collected, representing 241 species or morphospecies in 39 families. Nine species, including some of medical importance, represented new records for the area at the time of collection. A comparison to a survey performed in 1904 shows larger changes in the spider fauna.