Abstract Non-crop habitats in agricultural landscapes may differ in their potential to serve as source habitats for natural enemies. To determine this potential for different habitat types, it is crucial to understand habitat preferences and the habitat niche width of natural enemies. In addition, populations of natural enemies are affected by management practices depending on their preferences for habitat strata. Here we analysed agrobiont spider preferences (very common species in arable fields) for different microhabitats (ground, herbaceous, and shrub strata) and non-crop habitats (agroecosystems, forests, scrub, meadows, steppe, and wetlands). We compared guild-specific preferences of cursorial and web-building spiders that inhabit pome fruit orchards and cereal fields using two databases on Central European spider preferences. The majority of agrobiont spiders showed a moderate niche width. Agrobiont spiders from orchards preferred the shrub stratum while spiders from cereal fields preferred the ground and herbaceous strata across habitats. Agrobiont spiders primarily utilized non-crop habitats that were structurally similar to a particular agroecosystem: spiders from orchards utilized mostly woody vegetation while spiders from cereal fields utilized mostly meadows. Moreover, cursorial and web-building spider species from cereal fields differed in their preferences for different non-crop habitats. The results highlight that non-crop habitats have different potential as sources of agrobiont spiders. The composition of non-crop habitats in agricultural landscapes may affect the functional composition and pest control potential of spider communities. Further studies focusing on the effects that landscapes have on natural enemies in local agroecosystem need to account for the identity of non-crop habitats.

中文翻译：

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栖息地生态位表明，作为中欧农用蜘蛛的来源栖息地，非作物栖息地类型的质量不同

摘要 农业景观中的非作物栖息地作为天敌来源栖息地的潜力可能不同。为了确定不同栖息地类型的这种潜力，了解栖息地偏好和天敌的栖息地生态位宽度至关重要。此外，天敌种群受到管理实践的影响，这取决于它们对栖息地层的偏好。在这里，我们分析了不同微生境（地面、草本和灌木层）和非作物生境（农业生态系统、森林、灌木丛、草地、草原和湿地）的农用蜘蛛偏好（耕地中非常常见的物种）。我们使用两个关于中欧蜘蛛偏好的数据库比较了栖息在梨果园和谷田的游标蜘蛛和建网蜘蛛的公会特定偏好。大多数农生蜘蛛表现出中等的生态位宽度。来自果园的农用蜘蛛更喜欢灌木地层，而来自谷地的蜘蛛更喜欢跨越栖息地的地面和草本地层。农用蜘蛛主要利用结构上与特定农业生态系统相似的非作物栖息地：来自果园的蜘蛛主要利用木本植被，而来自谷地的蜘蛛主要利用草地。此外，来自谷地的游动蜘蛛和筑网蜘蛛物种对不同非作物栖息地的偏好不同。结果强调，非作物栖息地作为农生蜘蛛来源具有不同的潜力。农业景观中非作物栖息地的组成可能会影响蜘蛛群落的功能组成和害虫防治潜力。