Abstract
The spider abundance in weeded and non-weeded plots in a lime orchard was compared. The experiment was done at the Tropical Research and Education Center (TREC), Homestead, Florida. Samplings were taken from April to July 1998. The results of the preliminary test showed that the abundance of the web-building spiders was not significantly different between the weeded and the non-weeded plots for all the sampling periods. However, for hunting spiders the abundance was significantly higher in the non-weeded plots than in the weeded plots. This results suggests the importance of weeds as refuge area for the hunting spiders.
