These webs surround spiders with tangles of silk that can provide both physical protection and early warning of predators. In an article to appear in the January 2003 issue of Ecology Letters, researchers led by a team at Cornell University report that these three-dimensional webs are associated with a dramatic decrease in predation by mud-dauber wasps, major worldwide predators of spiders.
This escape from predation is accompanied by a dramatic increase in both spider species diversity and abundance. Thus, spider web evolution seems driven not only by capture efficiency, but also by protection of the spiders themselves.
Ecology Letters