Spider Webs
Behavior, Function, and Evolution
9780226534602
9780226534749
Spider Webs
Behavior, Function, and Evolution
In this lavishly illustrated, first-ever book on how spider webs are built, function, and evolved, William Eberhard provides a comprehensive overview of spider functional morphology and behavior related to web building, and of the surprising physical agility and mental abilities of orb weavers. For instance, one spider spins more than three precisely spaced, morphologically complex spiral attachments per second for up to fifteen minutes at a time. Spiders even adjust the mechanical properties of their famously strong silken lines to different parts of their webs and different environments, and make dramatic modifications in orb designs to adapt to available spaces. This extensive adaptive flexibility, involving decisions influenced by up to sixteen different cues, is unexpected in such small, supposedly simple animals.
As Eberhard reveals, the extraordinary diversity of webs includes ingenious solutions to gain access to prey in esoteric habitats, from blazing hot and shifting sand dunes (to capture ants) to the surfaces of tropical lakes (to capture water striders). Some webs are nets that are cast onto prey, while others form baskets into which the spider flicks prey. Some aerial webs are tramways used by spiders searching for chemical cues from their prey below, while others feature landing sites for flying insects and spiders where the spider then stalks its prey. In some webs, long trip lines are delicately sustained just above the ground by tiny rigid silk poles.
Stemming from the author’s more than five decades observing spider webs, this book will be the definitive reference for years to come.
As Eberhard reveals, the extraordinary diversity of webs includes ingenious solutions to gain access to prey in esoteric habitats, from blazing hot and shifting sand dunes (to capture ants) to the surfaces of tropical lakes (to capture water striders). Some webs are nets that are cast onto prey, while others form baskets into which the spider flicks prey. Some aerial webs are tramways used by spiders searching for chemical cues from their prey below, while others feature landing sites for flying insects and spiders where the spider then stalks its prey. In some webs, long trip lines are delicately sustained just above the ground by tiny rigid silk poles.
Stemming from the author’s more than five decades observing spider webs, this book will be the definitive reference for years to come.
See additional online materials for the book.
816 pages | 195 halftones, 97 line drawings | 8-1/2 x 11 | © 2020
Biological Sciences: Behavioral Biology, Biology--Systematics, Ecology, Evolutionary Biology
Reviews
Table of Contents
Chapter 1. Introduction
1.1 Introduction
1.2 A foreign world: life tied to silk lines
1.3 A brief history of spider web studies
1.4 Emphasis on behavior
1.5 The scope of this book and tactics in presentation
1.6 Evolutionary history and phylogeny
1.7 Terminology and other procedural matters
1.8 Acknowledgments
Chapter 2. The “hardware” of web-building spiders: morphology, silk, and behavior
2.1. Introduction
2.2 Silk glands and silk
2.3 Spinnerets as high-precision instruments
2.4 Leg morphology and behavior: grasping lines precisely and securely
2.5 Cutting lines and recycling silk
2.6 How spiders avoid adhering to their own webs: a mystery partly solved
2.7 Central nervous system basis for web construction
2.8 Summary
Chapter 3. Functions of orb web designs
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Correcting common misconceptions about orb webs
3.3 How orbs function
3.4 Summary
Chapter 4. Putting pieces together: tradeoffs and remaining puzzles
4.1 Introduction
4.2 “Optimal” orb designs: tradeoffs between functions are difficult to measure
4.3 “Multiple trap” design: a new way to view orb webs
4.4 Tensions and stresses
4.5 Relative numbers of radii and sticky spiral loops
4.6 Testing visibility and stopping functions: the extreme case of trunk orbs
4.7 Correlations between spider size and orb design?
4.8 Spider positions, attack behavior, and up-down asymmetries in orbs
4.9 Remaining puzzles
4.10 Non-orb webs
4.11 Evolutionary responses by insects? A neglected aspect of prey capture
4.12 Summary (including part of chapter 3)
Chapter 5. The building behavior of non-orb weavers
Chapter 6. The building behavior of orb-weavers
6.1 Introduction
6.2 Simplifications for smoother reading
6.3 Behavior of two araneids
6.4 Senility in orb construction: a new frontier?
6.5 Detailed movements
6.6 General patterns
6.7 Summary
Chapter 7. Cues directing web construction behavior
7.1 Introduction
7.2 Classifying the cues
7.3 Cues for sticky spiral construction
7.4 Temporary spiral
7.5 Hub
7.6 Stabilimentum construction
7.7 Radii, frames, and anchor lines
7.8 Early radii, and frames and anchor lines: determining web size, shape, and design
7.9 To build or not to build: triggering orb construction and destruction
7.10 Cues that trigger transitions between stages of orb construction
7.11 Other stimuli that spiders can sense but that are not (yet) known to guide orb construction
7.12 Hints of abilities: follow circular paths and sense radius lengths
7.13 Effects of psychotropic drugs on orb construction
7.14 Coordinating different adjustments to different cues
7.15 The (limited) role of simulations in understanding orb construction behavior
7.16 A missing link: translating cues into attachment sites
7.17 Summarizing the behavioral challenges met by orb weavers
7.18 Independence (?) of the spider’s responses
7.19 Changes in responses to cues: learning and maturation
7.20 Cues guiding the construction of non-orbs
7.21 Summary Chapter 8. Web ecology and website selection
8.1 Introduction: what is and is not included
8.2 Webs and ecological foraging theories
8.3 What is enough? “Fast lane” and “slow lane” spiders
8.4 Processes that produce habitat biases
8.5 A general correlation between website selectivity and web design flexibility?
8.6 Website tenacity, web durability, and recycling
8.7 Web durability
8.8 Limited by websites? Possible competition for prey and websites
8.9 Problems in attempts to study cues that guide website choices
8.10 Time of day: day webs vs. night webs
8.11 Summary
Chapter 9. Evolutionary patterns: an ancient success that produced high diversity and rampant convergence
9.1 Introduction
9.2 Patterns in the diversity of webs
9.3 Consequences of the failure of the prey specialist hypothesis for understanding diversity and convergence
9.4 What is a sheet web? Problems inherited from previous imprecision
9.5 Mygalomorphs: similar patterns of diversity and rampant convergence in a different world
9.6 Diversity of relations with insects
9.7 Lack of miniaturization effects
9.8 Paths not followed: alternative web forms in other animals
9.9 Summary and a new synthesis
Box 9.1 The most spectacular convergence of all: Fecenia
Box 9.2 The most spectacular divergence of all: Theridiidae
Box 9.3 Sand castles: extreme modifications of Seothyra henscheli webs to shifting sand
Box 9.4 Relation between web design and silk properties: stiff silk in Uroctea durandi
Chapter 10. Ontogeny, modularity, and the evolution of web building
10.1 Introduction
10.2 Web ontogeny and evolution
10.3 Early web evolution
10.4 The behavior patterns used to build early webs
10.5 Evolution of later non-orb webs
10.6 Inconsistent evolutionary trends in non-orb webs
10.7 Diversity in non-orbs that results from behavioral stability
10.8 The (probably) monophyletic origin of orb webs
10.9 Evolutionary changes in orb designs
10.10 “Post-orb” web evolution in Orbiculariae
10.11 Coevolution between attack behavior and web design (and its lack)
10.12 What didn’t happen, possible synapomorphies, and further puzzles
10.13 Modularity and adaptive flexibility
10.14 Modules and evolutionary transitions in web-building behavior
10.15 Summary
References
Index
1.1 Introduction
1.2 A foreign world: life tied to silk lines
1.3 A brief history of spider web studies
1.4 Emphasis on behavior
1.5 The scope of this book and tactics in presentation
1.6 Evolutionary history and phylogeny
1.7 Terminology and other procedural matters
1.8 Acknowledgments
Chapter 2. The “hardware” of web-building spiders: morphology, silk, and behavior
2.1. Introduction
2.2 Silk glands and silk
2.3 Spinnerets as high-precision instruments
2.4 Leg morphology and behavior: grasping lines precisely and securely
2.5 Cutting lines and recycling silk
2.6 How spiders avoid adhering to their own webs: a mystery partly solved
2.7 Central nervous system basis for web construction
2.8 Summary
Chapter 3. Functions of orb web designs
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Correcting common misconceptions about orb webs
3.3 How orbs function
3.4 Summary
Chapter 4. Putting pieces together: tradeoffs and remaining puzzles
4.1 Introduction
4.2 “Optimal” orb designs: tradeoffs between functions are difficult to measure
4.3 “Multiple trap” design: a new way to view orb webs
4.4 Tensions and stresses
4.5 Relative numbers of radii and sticky spiral loops
4.6 Testing visibility and stopping functions: the extreme case of trunk orbs
4.7 Correlations between spider size and orb design?
4.8 Spider positions, attack behavior, and up-down asymmetries in orbs
4.9 Remaining puzzles
4.10 Non-orb webs
4.11 Evolutionary responses by insects? A neglected aspect of prey capture
4.12 Summary (including part of chapter 3)
Chapter 5. The building behavior of non-orb weavers
5.1 Introduction
5.2 Order of lines and other higher-level patterns
5.2 Order of lines and other higher-level patterns
5.3 Lower-level patterns: leg movements and manipulation of lines
5.4 Stereotyped behavior in non-orb construction
5.5 Adjustments to substrate-imposed constraints
5.6 Managing swaths of fine lines
5.7 Summary
5.6 Managing swaths of fine lines
5.7 Summary
Box 5.1 The funnel web diplurid Linothele macrothelifera
Chapter 6. The building behavior of orb-weavers
6.1 Introduction
6.2 Simplifications for smoother reading
6.3 Behavior of two araneids
6.4 Senility in orb construction: a new frontier?
6.5 Detailed movements
6.6 General patterns
6.7 Summary
Chapter 7. Cues directing web construction behavior
7.1 Introduction
7.2 Classifying the cues
7.3 Cues for sticky spiral construction
7.4 Temporary spiral
7.5 Hub
7.6 Stabilimentum construction
7.7 Radii, frames, and anchor lines
7.8 Early radii, and frames and anchor lines: determining web size, shape, and design
7.9 To build or not to build: triggering orb construction and destruction
7.10 Cues that trigger transitions between stages of orb construction
7.11 Other stimuli that spiders can sense but that are not (yet) known to guide orb construction
7.12 Hints of abilities: follow circular paths and sense radius lengths
7.13 Effects of psychotropic drugs on orb construction
7.14 Coordinating different adjustments to different cues
7.15 The (limited) role of simulations in understanding orb construction behavior
7.16 A missing link: translating cues into attachment sites
7.17 Summarizing the behavioral challenges met by orb weavers
7.18 Independence (?) of the spider’s responses
7.19 Changes in responses to cues: learning and maturation
7.20 Cues guiding the construction of non-orbs
7.21 Summary
8.1 Introduction: what is and is not included
8.2 Webs and ecological foraging theories
8.3 What is enough? “Fast lane” and “slow lane” spiders
8.4 Processes that produce habitat biases
8.5 A general correlation between website selectivity and web design flexibility?
8.6 Website tenacity, web durability, and recycling
8.7 Web durability
8.8 Limited by websites? Possible competition for prey and websites
8.9 Problems in attempts to study cues that guide website choices
8.10 Time of day: day webs vs. night webs
8.11 Summary
Chapter 9. Evolutionary patterns: an ancient success that produced high diversity and rampant convergence
9.1 Introduction
9.2 Patterns in the diversity of webs
9.3 Consequences of the failure of the prey specialist hypothesis for understanding diversity and convergence
9.4 What is a sheet web? Problems inherited from previous imprecision
9.5 Mygalomorphs: similar patterns of diversity and rampant convergence in a different world
9.6 Diversity of relations with insects
9.7 Lack of miniaturization effects
9.8 Paths not followed: alternative web forms in other animals
9.9 Summary and a new synthesis
Box 9.1 The most spectacular convergence of all: Fecenia
Box 9.2 The most spectacular divergence of all: Theridiidae
Box 9.3 Sand castles: extreme modifications of Seothyra henscheli webs to shifting sand
Box 9.4 Relation between web design and silk properties: stiff silk in Uroctea durandi
Chapter 10. Ontogeny, modularity, and the evolution of web building
10.1 Introduction
10.2 Web ontogeny and evolution
10.3 Early web evolution
10.4 The behavior patterns used to build early webs
10.5 Evolution of later non-orb webs
10.6 Inconsistent evolutionary trends in non-orb webs
10.7 Diversity in non-orbs that results from behavioral stability
10.8 The (probably) monophyletic origin of orb webs
10.9 Evolutionary changes in orb designs
10.10 “Post-orb” web evolution in Orbiculariae
10.11 Coevolution between attack behavior and web design (and its lack)
10.12 What didn’t happen, possible synapomorphies, and further puzzles
10.13 Modularity and adaptive flexibility
10.14 Modules and evolutionary transitions in web-building behavior
10.15 Summary
References
Index