Researcher Jaime Pinzon has spent three decades on two continents exploring spiders large and small
August 2025
By Matthew Gutsch
Early in the morning on the edge of an Alberta peatland, hunched over a thick bed of snow, Jaime Pinzon is already drilling into the frozen forest floor to install a spider trap. For him, it’s all in a day’s work. Meet Natural Resources Canada’s (NRCan) restoration ecology scientist who studies spiders up close — collecting, cataloguing and championing these complex eight-legged creatures.
There’s much to study and to learn. “A spider collection is like a library,” he says. “Every specimen is a book telling a unique and fascinating story about our environment. And like a library, other researchers can use these resources to advance our knowledge of the world around us.”
Jaime Pinzon drills into the forest floor to install a trap capturing spider species for research. (Photo: Jason Edwards)
A growing collection for a changing world
With more than 30 years of experience, Jaime is one of NRCan’s leading spider experts who thrives in the field and in the lab. His spider collection at the Northern Forestry Centre in Edmonton, Alberta, now numbers about 600 species and over 25,000 specimens. It’s a strong and growing cornerstone of NRCan’s efforts to track ecosystem health across the country.
Currently, Jaime is in the process of photographing selected specimens in the collection to establish a visual gallery of the many spider species that call Alberta home. The collection is also routinely used to train students and other researchers, helping to develop new generations of Canadian spider enthusiasts.
A female goldenrod crab spider on an Alberta wild rose. (Right) The same species photographed in scientific detail for the collection. (Photos: Jaime Pinzon)
More than meets the eye
Spiders are fascinating creatures that play silent but important roles in many ecosystems and in our culture. Yet they’re often misunderstood and feared.
“The influence of spiders on our society is everywhere,” says Jaime. “Spiders have long played a starring role in our shared existence. A spider’s web can be seen as a metaphor for connections between people, nature and their shared sense of place.”
From folklore, where spiders are revered and mythologized, to literature and entertainment, spiders are deeply woven into our collective imagination. And, of course, Halloween wouldn’t be the same without them.
Spiders are natural predators. From left to right: the banded garden orb weaver (Argiope trifasciata), the western black widow (Latrodectus hesperus), the greater dark wolf spider (Arctosa raptor). (All photos: Jaime Pinzon)
The spider’s role in population regulation
Aside from being a cultural fixture, spiders are an indicator of environmental health. It’s one aspect that captures Jaime’s attention. “Spiders fundamentally contribute to balance in the ecosystem as generalist predators that regulate the populations of many insects,” says Jaime. “If spider populations were to collapse, it would cause a significant cascading effect that would affect us all.”
That’s because the nature and the extent of spiders’ influence on the world around us is widespread:
- Collectively, spiders consume an estimated 400 to 800 million tonnes of insects each year, quietly keeping pests in check globally.
- Their sensitivity to environmental changes makes them natural early-warning signs for climate change, habitat shifts and the presence of invasive species.
- Spiders live in every terrestrial ecosystem on Earth except Antarctica. One species even spends most of its life underwater in freshwater habitats.
Filling in knowledge gaps across borders and continents
As the world’s climate changes and their habitats shrink, expand or otherwise change, spiders are adapting. A changing climate means that species with specific habitat requirements may find it more challenging to adapt, while more generalist species — those that can thrive in a variety of conditions, like most spider species — may benefit from it.
A highlight of Jaime’s research is being able to document species on two continents. Originally from South America, he spent nearly six years surveying the Colombian Amazon, where he documented species that had never been studied before. Now, in Alberta, he focuses on various habitats that few spider experts explore — remote forests, sandy dunes, even industrial sites recovering from human-caused disturbances.
A very small sheet weaver spider is examined using tweezers in a petri dish, under a microscope. (Photo: Jaime Pinzon)
Spiders under the lens
Knowing which species live where helps scientists monitor ecosystem health, making it possible to detect changes over time. “Part of my research now includes collecting spiders in peatlands, an ecosystem traditionally overlooked in arachnological studies,” says Jaime. “This contributes to filling knowledge gaps with respect to what species are found in Alberta and to their distribution across the province.”
His latest project tracks non-native cellar spiders as they edge toward Canada’s borders. “We don’t yet know what they’ll mean for native species,” he says, “but we need data before surprises become problems.”
“We’re seeing non-native species of cellar spiders now establishing breeding populations along the southern border across Canada,” says Jaime. Meanwhile, the Joro spider, which is native to Eastern Asia, is rapidly spreading northward across the eastern United States: “It’s likely to start appearing in Canada sometime in the next few years.”
Sheet weaver spiders, named from the shape of their webs, are a favourite for Jaime to study. Comparatively little is known about this diverse group of very small spiders, but their high sensitivity to changes in the environment makes them especially useful for assessing the impact of human disturbances on an ecosystem.
“Although their small size makes it a challenge to identify them, once I have them under the microscope, I’m always amazed at the level of their morphological complexity,” says Jaime.
A passionate collector
When Jaime finishes his day, he puts his microscope away and leaves the lab. Yet his passion continues to burn bright, because back home he cares for more than 20 pet tarantulas. “I’m definitely drawn to tarantulas! ” he says. “They’re long-lived, fluffy beasts that are great as pets! Although tarantulas are usually associated with tropical areas, as a matter of fact, there are six species of tarantulas that call Canada home.”
Jaime’s live tarantula collection at home is safely displayed on shelves where he can easily keep track of each one of his pets. (Photo: Jaime Pinzon)
Spinning a web for the future
Jaime’s expertise weaves together three elements: the incredible diversity of spiders; their role in pest control; and the surprising insights they offer to science. “Building a ‘library’ of specimens is an important repository of our biodiversity,” says Jaime. “The NRCan collections initiative is working to standardize and centralize the various biological collections spread across the different centres.”
In all aspects of his work, Jaime is creating a legacy to help train the next wave of spider experts as he shares his collection, the results of his microscope time and his infectious enthusiasm with students, researchers and other spider science fans.
If you’re a member of the media or an educator and you would like to learn more about Jaime and his research, contact us at: sciencecommunications-communicationsscientifiques@nrcan-rncan.gc.ca
Speedy spider facts
- There are 52,000+ described spider species worldwide, including 1,400 in Canada.
- Some Alberta species are < 1 mm long, about the size of a pencil point; the largest measure two centimetres, about the size of a bottle cap.
- Many males are much smaller than females, and some can live on the female’s body and feed on scraps.
- Spider silk is stronger than steel by weight.
- Hatchlings can travel long distances by “ballooning,” or releasing silk threads that catch the wind and carry them for kilometres — some have even been spotted from airplanes.
- Silk chemistry is inspiring new medical materials and lightweight bio-adhesives for industrial use, among other applications.