SPIDERS living in warmer urban environments are getting significantly bigger than their country cousins, who have less prey to choose from and expend more energy keeping warm.

At the Ecological Society of Australia's annual conference in Melbourne on Wednesday, University of Sydney PhD candidate Lizzy Lowe will outline her research, which suggests urbanisation has a positive impact on some species.

Lizzy Lowe has found spiders enjoy the conditions available to them in cities and it is helping their development. Credit:Wayne Taylor

She studied the golden orb weaver in three types of environments in and around Sydney - urban parks, remnant bushland and continuous bushland. Twenty sites were studied and, for each spider web found, she assessed its proximity to man-made objects and vegetation.

After comparing 222 spiders - including measuring size, weight and body fat - Miss Lowe found city spiders were bigger than those from the bush. She also established that within urban environments, spiders were bigger when they were found closer to man-made objects.