South Dakota Spider Survey Reveals New Findings

Dr. L. Brian Patrick, Assistant Professor of Biology and Chair of the Department of Biological Sciences at Dakota Wesleyan University in Mitchell, talks about the South Dakota Spider Survey (SDSS). Dr. Patrick recently attended the American Arachnological Society annual meeting in Johnson City, Tennessee, giving a presentation, "South Dakota Spider Survey: Preliminary Findings of Field Samplings and Literature Review," co-authored by Kevin Pfeiffer, a Sioux Falls native who lives in Berlin, Germany. Patrick presented information on what was known about spiders at the time the SDSS was established in 2010, as well as what additional species have been found in the state since 2010. He then presented information on the direction and purpose of the SDSS, which is a project aimed at documenting the abundance and distribution of spiders in the state.