The purpose of this study was to identify if terrestrial arthropod predators on Baltic Sea shores vary in their use of marine versus terrestrial food items, and to construct a bottom-up food web for Baltic Sea shores. The inflow of marine nutrients in the area consists mainly of marine algal detritus and emerging aquatic insects (e.g. phantom midges, Chironomidae). Diets of coastal arthropods were examined using carbon and nitrogen stable isotope analysis, and a two source mixing model was used to examine proportions of marine carbon to diets. The results suggest that spiders are the terrestrial predators mainly utilizing nutrients and energy of marine origin on Baltic Sea shores, while insect predators such as beetles and hemipterans mainly utilize nutrients and energy derived from terrestrial sources, possibly due to differences in hunting behaviour. That spiders are the predators that benefit the most from the marine inflow suggest that eventual effects of marine subsidies for the coastal ecosystem as a whole are likely mediated by spiders.

In the last decades, there has been a growing interest in studying particular those arthropods who have an important role in agroecosystems. For example, they are natural enemies of pests and therefore they are considered to be beneficial organisms. However, these beneficial arthropods may be negatively affected by the application of chemicals under the management of agroecosystems and their potential to inhibit pests can be significantly reduced. Such organisms certainly include spiders which occure in abundant numbers practically in all types of terrestrial habitats including agricultural ecosystems where they have a role of very important predators. Therefore, the thesis focused on current issues of pesticides, especially from the view of their negative effects on behavioral modification of beneficial invertebrate organisms in agricultural crops. The theoretical part is devoted to a brief characteristics of pesticides, their sublethal effects on non-target organisms and the importance of spiders as natural regulators of pests in agroecosystems. The practical part describes the experiment whereconventionally used agrochemicals were tested the influence of the herbicide and desiccant Basta 15, the Arrest preparation and their combination (mixture Basta 15 + Arrest) on spiders genus Pardosa. I focused on the side effects of these solutions, specifically on the modification of predatory behavior and on the mortality of spiders. It has been shown that agrochemicals affect the predation successfulness of spiders. From the short term and the long term point of view, it has been shown that spiders treated with the tested preparations killed less prey than the individuals in the control group which were treated only with distilled water. The dependence of mortality and the number of killed prey on the size and sex has not been proved. Preparations Basta 15 and the mixture caused significantly higher mortality of spiders. The Arrest preparation did not increase the mortality.

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