A common orb-weaving spider is believed to grow larger and have an increased ability to reproduce when living in urban areas.
The findings suggest urbanization may drastically increase the "landscape, local climate, and consequently the organisms that inhabit it," PLOS reported. Some of these creatures will lose the resources they need to survive, while others will thrive and adapt.
"Urbanisation modifies landscapes at multiple scales, impacting the local climate and changing the extent and quality of natural habitats. These habitat modifications significantly alter species distributions and can result in increased abundance of select species which are able to exploit novel ecosystems," the researchers wrote in the PLOS study abstract.
These adaptations can be observed in the animal, insect, or arachnid's body size. The University of Sydney, Australia research team looked at physical attributes of the orb-weaving spider in both its natural and urbanized habitats using multiple environmental variables.
The team quantified the degree of urbanization at sites such as Sydney, and looked at how the environmental changes influenced the spider's "body size, fat reserves, and ovary weight."
"Habitat variables at landscape, local and microhabitat scales were integrated to create a series of indexes that quantified the degree of urbanisation at each site," the researchers wrote.
The researchers found the spiders had smaller body sizes in regions with more vegetation cover and larger bodies in urbanized areas. The team also found the spider's reproductive availability (ovary weight) increased in higher socioeconomic areas, such as those with more leaf litter or harder surfaces.
The findings, such as the larger size and increased reproductive capacity of the orb spider, suggest the species actually benefits from habitat changes associated with urbanization.
"The larger size and increased reproductive capacity of N.plumipes in urban areas show that some species benefit from the habitat changes associated with urbanisation. Our results also highlight the importance of incorporating environmental variables from multiple scales when quantifying species responses to landscape modification," the researchers wrote.
The study was published August 20, 2014 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE.
