Native versus introduced prey items
BLAST matches were low for most ASVs, resulting in lack of confident identification. Because of this, only 53 of 164 ASVs were identifiable as native versus non-native prey taxa. Therefore, most ASVs in the diets of spiders in ginger or native forest were not assigned an endemism status. With those that were identifiable, we find more non-native prey ASVs in ginger forest than in native forest (Figure 6). Additionally, we find less identifiable ASVs in spiders collected from native forest. Because widely spread introduced taxa are usually well-studied, the fewer identifiable sequences found in spiders in native forest could indicate more native prey taxa not yet sequenced.
Looking at the diets of individual spiders, we find that more spiders in ginger-invaded habitat are consuming diets consisting entirely of non-native prey than diets consisting of native prey (Figure 7). Moreover, the prey orders not found in high abundance in native forest but eaten commonly in ginger are largely non-native. In particular, all Entomobryomorpha detected in the diets of spiders are non-native. Spiders in ginger were additionally eating more non-native hemipterans than the spiders in native forest. More unidentifiable sequences were detected in native forest; the prey status in the diets of 33 of the 58 spiders from native forest were unknown. This could relate to lack of presence in GenBank and indicate higher concentration of native prey taxa, while adventive or introduced taxa are more well-represented resulting in a higher level of ASV identification in ginger sites.