Brace yourselves, winter is coming: the winter activity, natural diet, and prey preference of winter-active spiders on pear trees.

Modern agricultural pest management systems rely on naturally occurring generalist predators to promote pest suppression. Still, little research has been done to assess their overall effectiveness, especially over the winter period when their potential is high. In this study, we focused on three genera of winter-active spiders Clubiona, Philodromus, and Anyphaena, common predators on pear trees in Central Europe during winter and early spring. We investigated their predation activity, natural diet, and prey preference using molecular gut content and abundance data obtained from cardboard bands, which served as natural shelters. We compared these characteristics between two distinct biocontrol-promoting managements—integrated pest management (IPM) and organic management (ORG). We found the proportion of prey-positive spider individuals during the winter period to be lower compared to the spring period with Anyphaena having by far the highest proportion. The prey composition during winter was more diverse in ORG orchards, but in both managements, it was inclined toward pests, mostly pear psyllids. Conversely, in early spring, despite psyllids still being a part of the diet, spiders in IPM orchards preyed more frequently on neutral prey (mostly dipterans), while the spiders from organic orchards preyed mostly on pests (lepidopterans). Although more data are needed to assess trophic interactions and the overall efficiency of these winter-active predators in complex arthropod food webs present in pear orchards, the results obtained from this research provide the first evidence of higher pest predation during a period of agricultural quiescence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]