A preliminary investigation of spider species richness in an eastern Slovenian broadleaf forest

An estimate of spider species richness was generated using the methods described by Coddington et al. (in press). The objectives of the project were to measure local spider diversity, start a national spider species list solely for Slovenia and train 'newcomers' in spider identification and sampling. Over the six days of collecting (31 July - 5 August 1995) 1,201 specimens were gathered, 75 of which were adult, belonging to 11 families, 24 genera and 31 species. The data generated a species richness estimate of 48 - 57 for the forest at that given time. High numbers of juveniles and single species representatives were not a good distribution for the protocol statistics. However, a preliminary estimation of spider species richness was produced and may prove useful to future investigators in the Slovenian area. In addition to the l'ichness estimate, five 'beginners' were trained in spider identification and could reliably key spiders to the family level by the end of the project.