Beyond Extrafloral Nectaries: Plant Traits as Drivers of Spider Occurrence in the Cerrado

Patterns of predator occurrence arise from a mosaic of plant‐derived cues, yet most studies address these traits in isolation. Although extrafloral nectaries have received considerable attention, we lack a comprehensive view of how multiple plant traits jointly affect the diversity and abundance of spiders. We explored spider plant‐associations in the Brazilian Cerrado, a megadiverse savanna. Over 1 year of biweekly surveys, we recorded 999 spiders on 546 reproductive plants across 11 species. We aimed to explore whether plant life form, inflorescence architecture, and flower colour act as interconnected filters. Using negative‐binomial generalized linear mixed models and Factor Analysis of Mixed Data, we found that all three traits significantly structured spider assemblages. Trees supported substantially greater spider abundance (~11.8 times higher than lianas; ~10.2 times higher than shrubs) and species richness (~6.4 times higher than shrubs) than other life forms. Raceme inflorescences hosted the most abundant (~4.6–18.4 times higher than other types) and species‐rich spider assemblages. Flower colour influenced abundance, with pink flowers supporting ~2.5 times more spiders than yellow flowers, but did not affect richness. Multivariate analyses identified plant life form and inflorescence architecture as primary axes organizing assemblage variation, with flower colour as a secondary but consistent filter. Collectively, our results indicate that spider occurrence emerges from an integrated filtering process in which plant reproductive adaptations cascade to affect predator assemblages. By linking plant evolutionary ecology with predator–prey dynamics, this study advances our understanding of species interactions and highlights how plant traits contribute to food web assembly across trophic levels.