[1] However, it has been reported to be most common from New England and Great Lakes states, westward into Nebraska and eastern Colorado, south to Arkansas, Mississippi, and northern Georgia, with disjunct populations in Washington and Oregon.

In this type of ecosystem (floodplains forest and habitat near to bodies of water), spiders of this species are more common, indicating that humidity is important for its distribution.

[6] Adult Agelenopsis pennsylvanica spiders feed on a variety of insects, particularly, hemipterans (true bugs), homopterans (Homoptera, a suborder of Hemiptera), coleopterans (beetles), hymenopterans (bees, ants, wasps and sawflies), dipterans (true flies), and orthopterans (grasshoppers, locusts and crickets).

[2] It has also been found that the boldness and foraging aggressiveness behaviors of juvenile spiders that are field-caught are a phenotypic plasticity response, which is driven by the environmental conditions where they live and that do not exist in a laboratory.

[12] The results of this study suggest that sexual cannibalism in females is caused by general aggressiveness and by their hunger state.

In this spider species cannibalism has two major advantages for the female: 1) improved reproductive output and fecundity; and 2) increased attractiveness to males.

[13] In 2013, Kralj-Fišer and colleagues studied the aggressive spillover hypothesis (ASH) and its involvement in pre-copulatory sexual cannibalism.

[14] Additionally, Kralj-Fišer and colleagues found that virgin female spiders that consumed the first potential mate prior to copulation, exhibited increased reproductive success: “they gleaned more offspring from heavier egg sacs”.

[14] This demonstrates that pre-copulatory sexual cannibalism has adaptive consequences that are the result of multiple mechanisms acting in concert.

[6] Members of the genus Agelenopsis rely on high burst speeds to capture prey, thus capitalizing on foraging opportunities.

[16][17] If this high burst is compromised – as would be expected from pathogenic infection – the locomotor performance ability of this spider is going to be reduced.

[6] Environmental microbes have been found to play a critical role in courtship behavior, female survival, and mating dynamics of A.

[13] In a study by Spicer and colleagues in 2019,[13] the authors found that when either the male or female of A. pennsylvanica is exposed to environmental microbes, their mating behavior, fecundity, and survivorship are altered.

[13] Two non-mutually exclusive hypotheses to explain the delay in courtship behavior when females are exposed to bacteria were suggested: 1) males may detect the bacterial load of their partner and adjust their behavior, or 2) females may reduce their sexual receptivity when they perceive an increase in their bacterial load, delaying courtship initiation by males.

[19] Parks and colleagues study the relationship between the grass species A. pennsylvanica and bacteria collected from their cuticles in situ.

[19] They found that exposure to Dermacoccus nishinomiyaensis and Staphylococcus saprophyticus decrease the foraging aggressiveness of spiders toward prey in their web.

[19] Parks and colleagues focused their research on three host behavioral traits: boldness, aggressiveness, and activity level.

Consequently, there was no evidence to suggest that cuticular bacterial load was harmful to spiders, at least in terms of survival rates.

[19][21] Additionally, Parks and colleagues found that two common soil bacteria – D. nishinomiyaensis and S. saprophyticus – were associated with over a 10-fold decrease in spiders’ foraging aggressiveness toward prey.

[19] The bodily entrance pathway for this cuticular bacteria could leave the spider vulnerable with a compromised immune system.

[19] In 1976, James E. Carrel and R. D. Heathcote studied the heart rate in spiders and how it was influenced by body size and foraging energetics.

Blood is used as a hydrostatic fluid to extend the spider's appendages – compounded by extensor muscles in some leg joints.

[22] James E. Carrel and R. D. Heathcote found that in web weaver spiders – Filistata hibernalis, Argiope aurantia, Eriophora sp., Neoscona arabesca, and Agelenopsis pennsylvanica – there is a negative relationship between body weight and heart rate.

[22] This suggests that there is an energy-conserving adaptation in which these spiders invest little effort in prey capture and, consequently, feed only occasionally.

[22] McKeown and colleagues study the bite of different spider species in Oregon (USA) to understand the harm that the venom could have on humans.

[23] During experimentation, patients were told to place the spider that had bit them in a container and subsequently, to send it to the Oregon Poison Control Center.

[23] The bites from "A. pennsylvanica" were determined to cause itching, swelling, and redness in the area that was bitten, in some cases some patients presented back pain.