And it’s far from trivial because these little beasts, often unloved, provide us with great ecological services. They absorb pests and tell us about the quality of an ecosystem.
It is an evaluation which required five years of work and which mobilized the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the French Office for Biodiversity, the Natural History Museum and the French Society of arachnology. These scientists note that of the 1,622 species of spiders recorded in France almost everywhere (in meadows, caves, forests, inhabited areas or the coast), 10% are threatened with extinction, and 6% are almost threatened. .
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In other words, 1 in 6 spider species that may soon no longer exist. They are both victims of urbanization and the artificialization of the soil which destroys their habitat, but also of the use of pesticides and global warming.
The more spiders you have, the less mites you have
Why is this threat of extinction of spiders a concern? Because these little critters, often unpopular, are very far from being useless or harmful. On the contrary, they play a very valuable role in regulating insect populations. Having a few spiders at home is the assurance of having fewer mites, fewer flies or mosquitoes for example. You should know that all the spiders in the world absorb the equivalent of the biomass of all humans on earth, explains to franceinfo Christine Rollard, araneologist attached to the natural history museum.
🕷 Of the 1622 species listed, 170 are threatened on our territory, while 101 others are close to being and are almost threatened. pic.twitter.com/IxqsXM9UtN
— IUCN French Committee (@UICNfrance) April 5, 2023
We are 8 billion human beings, imagine an equivalent mass of insects. And that’s what all the spiders in the world were getting rid of. In addition, these insects are bio-indicators of the quality of the environment. In other words, when there are spiders, the local ecosystem is rather balanced.
No conservation program
How to preserve spiders? Simply stop eliminating them, including at home? Obviously, what counts above all is to limit the destruction of their habitat and to control the use of pesticides. But on an individual scale, for Christine Rollard, it is in our best interest to let spiders live in the house, because they are natural insecticides, which can perfectly coexist with us.
The unpopularity of spiders is also a fairly Western concept and contrary to popular belief, they do not sting or bite very very rarely. This teacher-researcher would like there to be more means of research to identify and protect this population. Because to date no species of spider is the subject of a specific conservation program.