{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,26]],"date-time":"2026-10-26T19:34:06Z","timestamp":1793043246526,"version":"4.5.0"},"reference-count":34,"publisher":"Oxford University Press (OUP)","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,28]],"date-time":"2026-09-28T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1790553600000},"content-version":"am","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"name":"Texas Christian University (TCU) Science and Engineering Research Center","id":[{"id":"https:\/\/ror.org\/054b0b564","id-type":"ROR","asserted-by":"crossref"}]},{"name":"TCU Biology Department, and a TCU Research and Creatives Fund"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":[],"abstract":"<jats:title>Abstract<\/jats:title>\n                  <jats:p>Orb-weaver spiders (family Araneidae) build webs on shoreline vegetation and human-made structures and feed on methylmercury (MeHg)\u2013contaminated emerging insects from aquatic ecosystems. Orb-weavers have been proposed as sentinels of MeHg contamination in aquatic systems because the concentration of MeHg in the tissues of riparian spiders can reflect the level of MeHg contamination in nearby aquatic ecosystems. Effectively using orb-weaver spiders as sentinels requires an understanding of how their levels of MeHg contamination vary with factors such as spider body size and time of collection. The objective of this study was to examine the effect of spider size and month of collection on total mercury (Hg; inorganic Hg\u2009+\u2009MeHg) and MeHg concentrations in orb-weavers. We collected a size array of orb-weavers from a floating boat dock on Eagle Mountain Reservoir near Fort Worth, Texas, United States from May to September 2019. Total Hg and MeHg increased with spider size, measured as average leg length, but the monthly patterns in concentrations of total Hg and MeHg differed. Total Hg increased strongly from May through September, whereas MeHg did not vary significantly among months in a size-adjusted model, resulting in a sharp decline in the percentage of total Hg that was MeHg (%MeHg) over time. Stable isotope results showed strong monthly variation in \u03b415N values, suggestive of seasonal changes in diet. \u00a0Seasonal variation in total Hg concentration has important implications for using orb-weaver spiders as sentinels of Hg contamination of aquatic systems and suggest that total Hg should not be used as a proxy for MeHg without accounting for seasonal variation in %MeHg.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1093\/etojnl\/vgag260","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,28]],"date-time":"2026-09-28T12:32:06Z","timestamp":1790598726000},"source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Effects of body size and month of collection on total mercury and methylmercury concentrations in orb-weaver spiders: Implications for the use of riparian spiders as sentinels"],"prefix":"10.1093","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-7160-3157","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Matthew M","family":"Chumchal","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Biology 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States"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Benjamin D","family":"Barst","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Water and Environmental Research Center, University of Alaska Fairbanks , Fairbanks, AK,","place":["United States"]},{"name":"Department of Earth, Energy, and Environment, University of Calgary, Calgary , Alberta,","place":["Canada"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Madeline P","family":"Hannappel","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, University of California Berkeley , Berkeley, CA,","place":["United States"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"286","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,28]]},"reference":[{"key":"2026102614393748300_vgag260-B1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"655","DOI":"10.1111\/j.1440-1703.2004.00680.x","article-title":"Food source of riparian spiders analyzed by using 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