Open Access

Hubert Höfer, Antonio D. Brescovit

• We present a species list of spiders collected over a period of more than 5 years in a rainforest reserve in central Amazonia -Reserva Ducke. The list is mainly based on intense sampling by several methods during two years and frequent visual sampling during 5 years, but also includes records from other arachnologists and from the literature, in total containing 506 (morpho-)specles in 284 genera and 56 families. The species records from this Neotropical rainforest form the basis for a biodiversity database for Amazonian spiders with specimens from several Brazilian collections and the collection of the State Museum of Natural History Karlsruhe, where it is housed. This database will in the future facilitate species identification of Neotropical spider collections, allow comparison of morphospecles and serve as an important background for biodiversity evaluation in natural and anthropogenic habitats and the recognition of species distribution and loss. For further evaluation of the structure of Neotropical spider assemblages and their ecological function we present an analysis of the guild structure of the fauna of Reserva Ducke, although we also emphasize the lack of knowledge on natural history and behavior for many of the species.