LA CONSERVAZIONE DELL’ARANEOFAUNA IN ITALIA E IN EUROPA

Spiders are an important group of terrestrial invertebrates, that colonized virtually all available habitats on Earth. Despite their ecological importance and their diversity – so far more than 47000 spider species have been described, – spiders are still under-represented in conservation policies and conservation biology, especially compared to other invertebrate groups. Considering the international legislation, only one species (Macrothele calpeiana) is listed in the Bern Convention and in the Habitats Directive and only 20 species are reported in the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), none of which is naturally occurring in Europe. In addition, the risk of extinction of 199 species have been assessed by the International Union of Conservation of Nature (IUCN), 10 of which occurs in Europe. We report a brief overview on spider conservation in Europe, including an outline on the available European Red Lists. We provide a particular focus on the conservation of spiders in Italy, with reference to the species cited by the international legislation (Macrothele calpeiana), the Italian regional legislation (Dolomedes plantarius and Argyroneta aquatica) and the IUCN Red List (D. plantarius, Hasarius adansoni, Vesubia jugorum and Pimoa delphinica). In view of the remarkable diversity of the Italian fauna, we conclude that the current conservation of spiders in Italy is largely inadequate.