Abstract
Collections of spiders were made within two hours at six kinds of minor ecosystem types selected along the gradient of human impact at the campus of the University of Occupational and Environmental Health, Japan, (UOEH) and an adjacent natural forest late in August of 1981. The diversity of the spider community as indicated by the abundance of families and species was the highest in the natural forest, followed by the secondary forest, and low in the newly created area such as the bare ground and the lawn. Numbers of individuals collected were large in the forests and far smaller in the lawn areas, shrubbery and on the bare ground. The percentage of the large web-making species was high in the forests, shrubbery and wetland and was almost zero on the lawn and on the bare ground. The percentage of the cursorial species was lower in the forests and higher on the wetland, lawn and the bare ground.
