The nocturnal Neoscona Crucifera Orbweavers that live near me take down their webs every morning and put them back up every night. I’m not sure why they do this. Anybody know why?
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To prevent damage by non-nocturnal non-prey? Birds and hikers or other large ish mammals? It seems a lot of work, so there must be good reasons.
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Making a web is resource intensive. AFAIK they eat it back and get the spent nutrients back that way for re-use and with less loss than if the web was there longer. And I think @DianaStuder has a very believable point above as well.
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the webs tend to suffer a lot of wear and tear in the course of a night’s trapping as well, and would require a lot of ‘patching up’ - easier to just tear it down and make a fresh one
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Lots of birds feed on spiders, its easier to hide from predators when you dont advertise your location so openly. There are other spider predators as well. The building I used to work in had a lot of Pholcus and a fantail would often fly in and pick them off the ceilings before flying out again.
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