Melisande Chicoine; Pierre-Olivier Montiglio; Maikel Rosabal
 

 - Résumé: Mining and motor vehicles traffic generated a large amount of trace metals in the atmosphere. These contaminants are hard to track in the trophic web, which make understanding their effects on animal communities hard to understand. Spider webs can be good indicators of aerosol trace metals percentage, which could make spiders a potentially good bioindicator for these contaminants. Moreover, as secondary consumers in the trophic web, they would make good candidates to study the destiny of trace metals in the food chain. This study aim to evaluate the potential of Western black widows as bioindicator for aerosol trace metals by establishing a contamination gradient between an uncontaminated area (desert) and urban area. I will compare the accumulation capacity between passive air filter and black widows' webs, then between the spiders and their webs.