Worldwide, with the decline of natural habitats, species with reduced niche breadth (specialists) are at greater risk of extinction as they cannot colonise or persist in disturbed habitat types. However, the role of thermal tolerance as a critical trait in understanding changes in species diversity in disturbed habitats, e.g., due to forest replacement by tree plantations, is still understudied. To examine the role of thermal tolerance on the responses of specialist and generalist species to habitat disturbances, we measured and compared local temperature throughout the year and thermotolerance traits [upper (CTmax) and lower (CTmin) thermal limits] of the most abundant species of spiders from different guilds inhabiting pine tree plantations and native Atlantic Forests in South America. Following the thermal adaptation hypothesis, we predicted that generalist species would show a wider thermal tolerance range (i.e., lower CTmin and higher CTmax) than forest specialist species. As expected, generalist species showed significantly higher CTmax and lower CTmin values than specialist species with wider thermal tolerance ranges than forest specialist species. These differences are more marked in orb weavers than in aerial hunter spiders. Our study supports the specialisation disturbance and thermal hypotheses. It highlights that habitat-specialist species are more vulnerable to environmental changes associated with vegetation structure and microclimatic conditions. Moreover, thermal tolerance is a key response trait to explain the Atlantic Forest spider's ability (or inability) to colonise and persist in human-productive land uses.

在世界范围内，随着自然栖息地的减少，生态位宽度缩小的物种（专家）面临更大的灭绝风险，因为它们无法在受干扰的栖息地类型中定居或持续存在。然而，热耐受性作为理解受干扰栖息地物种多样性变化的关键性状（例如由于人工林取代森林）的作​​用仍然没有得到充分研究。为了研究耐热性对专业物种和通才物种对栖息地干扰的反应的作用，我们测量并比较了全年当地温度以及最丰富物种的耐热性特征[上限（CTmax）和下限（CTmin）]来自不同行会的蜘蛛栖息在南美洲的松树种植园和大西洋本土森林中。根据热适应假说，我们预测通才物种将比森林专长物种表现出更宽的耐热范围（即较低的 CTmin 和较高的 CTmax）。正如预期的那样，通才物种的 CTmax 值显着高于专科物种，而 CTmin 值则明显低于专科物种，且耐热范围比森林专科物种更宽。这些差异在球织蜘蛛中比在空中猎蛛中更为明显。我们的研究支持专业化干扰和热假设。它强调，栖息地特殊物种更容易受到与植被结构和小气候条件相关的环境变化的影响。此外，耐热性是解释大西洋森林蜘蛛在人类生产性土地利用中定居和持续存在的能力（或无能力）的关键反应特征。