Does Climate Change Affect the Geographical Distribution of Korean Uroctea Spiders’ Habitats?

Geographical distribution change in animals and plants would be affected by global warming. In Korea, according to geographic distribution of two Uroctea species, U. lesserti and U. compactilis, which were studied previously, their geographic distribution shows unique tendency. U. In northern area, lesserti was distributed, but in southern area U. compactilils was distributed. The distribution tendency of the two species, depending on latitude, is expected to be closely related with climate. Aims of this study are to get geographic points (GPS coordinate) of Korean Uroctea spiders’ habitats, to decide distribution line of two Uroctea species by connecting the points, and to use them as data to monitor how does climate change affect on a two Uroctea species’ distribution. According to the results of confirming their distribution line through GPS coordinates which were collected in this study, it is well matched up with 12℃ annual average temperature line. Temperature data of the Meteorological Administration of five regions, that were located on two Uroctea species’ distribution line, show that their annual average temperatures were around 12.6℃. According to the results, climate temperature of 12℃ would be important climatic factor to devide Uroctea species’s geographical distribution. Along temperature distribution line of 12℃, U. lesserti is distributed in northern area and U. compactilis is distributed in southern area. Climate change model predicts that climate temperature during the period of 2070 to 2100 will increase by 3.8℃ compared with these days. According to the model, annual climate temperature of Gangwon Province will be 12.8℃ during the period of 2070 to 2100. Thus, two Uroctea species’ distribution line could be predicted to move northward to Gangwon Province during the period of 2070 to 2100. As direction for future researches, three localities where two Uroctea speceis are coexisting, Gopoong-Jungmiso (rice mill) (Chungnam, Seosan-si, Gobuk-myeon, Gagu-ri), Naehyeon-ri (Chungnam, Boryeong-si, Cheongra-myeon), and Chunpo-ri (Jeonbuk, Iksan-si, Chunpo-myeon), need to be monitored. In addition, we need to study how difference of climate temperature affects breeding and development of two Uroctea species. Also it sould be studied how minute climate temperature difference affects habitat competition between two species.