CAREER: Evolutionary Origins of High Performance Major Ampullate Spider Silk: Development of an Integrated Bioscience Training Program

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Spiders are among the most diverse animals on earth due, in part, to the exceptional properties of their silk. These properties are epitomized by orb weaving spiders that spin the backbones of their webs using dragline silk, which has a high tensile strength and extreme toughness, exceeding that of Kevlar®. Thus, orb weaving dragline silk is an important model for materials science. Nevertheless, it is an ancient silk and many other spider lineages also spin dragline silk. This project seeks to understand how dragline silk evolved such astonishing physical characteristics by focusing on its evolutionary change at the genetic, biomechanical, and ecological levels. Objective 1 compares the structure and function of dragline silk from ancient lineages of spiders to tarantulas, which spin a primitive type of silk. Objective 2 examines supercontraction, a novel property of dragline silk that may allow spiders to control fiber spinning, and tests key hypotheses about when it evolved and what causes it. Finally, Objective 3 tests the role of ecological changes in dragline silk use as a force shaping the evolution of its material properties. This project will yield a better understanding of a biomaterial critical to the success of a mega-diverse lineage of animals and also provide valuable insight for the synthesis of biomimetic dragline silk analogs. The project will also play a key role in the development of the University of Akron's brand new PhD program in Integrative Bioscience by directly supporting and training students and by serving as a "hands on" case study of integrative research that will be followed by the first cohorts of these Integrative Bioscience students.