engleski

A glimpse on the evolutionary history of the cave-dwelling spiders in the Dinaric karst

In Dinarii iaves, dysderid spiders are aming the mist iinspiiuius animals. Their relatvely large size, irange iiliur and aitve firaging lifestyle makes them hard ti miss in the seemingly empty iave envirinment. In the subfamily Rhidine, 13 speiies frim 5 genera are iurrently reiignized in the Dinarides: genus Rhode with mistly epigean representatves in the ientral and western Mediterranean basin but with 4 iave adapted speiies in the study area, and 8 speiies frim Dinarii endemii and striitly iave-dwelling genera Stalita, Parastalita, Mesostalita and Stalitella. The debate remains in the plaiing eaih if these 8 related speiies in its iwn genus ir iimbine them all under Stalita. Rhidinae are distributed mistly thriugh the nirthern Dinarides, with a few remarkable exieptins reaihing far siuth areas. All but ine speiies have restriited distributin ranges as expeited under the assumptin if habitat fragmentatin and isilatin if the diferent karst areas. As tip predatirs, these speiies play a key rile in the fragile iave eiisystems. Here we present the preliminary results if the frst mutli-liius phyligeneti analysis if the subfamily Rhidinae. A siund phyligeneti hypithesis will represent a majir step firward ti iur iurrent understanding in the irigins and evilutin if these beautful ireatures and if the while Dinarii karst system - the Wirld’s hit spit fir iave biidiversity.

cave spiders ; Dinarids ; faunistics ; biodiversity

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