Collaborative Research: Spider Web Vibrations -- Active and Passive Detection

合作研究：蜘蛛网振动——主动和被动检测

• 批准号: 1504428
• 负责人: Ross Hatton
• 金额: $ 32.78万
• 依托单位: Oregon State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2015-09-15 至 2019-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1504428&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Spider; Web; Vibrations

Web-borne vibrations are the main source of many spiders' sensory information. Most famously, they inform spiders of the location of prey trapped in the web; web vibrations also carry signals from potential mates and alert spiders to the presence of their own predators. Some of these predators in turn exploit web vibrations to send misleading signals that trick spiders into ambushes or to "hide" their approach among other web disturbances. Understanding how web geometry and composition (webs are woven from several types of silk) affect transmission of these cues thus plays an important role in understanding spiders' behavior and ecology. Biologists have investigated these phenomena experimentally, for example, measuring web frequency responses resulting from different geometries. Much less attention has been directed to modeling web vibrations, despite the additional insight such models would provide. In the frequency response study, for instance, the experimenters were limited to working with natural webs or those with threads removed, and could not test the effects of arbitrarily altering thread patterns or types, which would be crucial for understanding web design. This project will fill this gap by exploring the design of spider webs through computational models for the vibration of string networks backed up by a new generation of experiments on biological and artificially-constructed webs. The key broader impact of the proposed work is making sophisticated modern vibration models available to biologists and others whose expertise is not in dynamical systems. How spiders find their prey is a compelling story and will inspire K-12 students with the interplay between physics, math, biology, and engineering; the PIs will develop a simplified 'teaching' version of the interface, to be distributed through Oregon State University's middle-school outreach program and the Berkeley Chapter of "Expanding your Horizons," an organization to promote the inclusion of middle school girls in STEM fields.In particular the PI will investigate how a web's geometry and composition affects the transmission of vibratory signals that spiders use to locate and identify trapped prey items. The PI will apply modern dynamical systems theory and experimental techniques to a recognized need in biological study, and in doing so expands understanding of the physics of networks of strings. Compared to previous research in this area, the proposed work will be the first to explicitly and quantitatively consider whole-web vibration energy pathways, look for nonlinear effects in the vibration response, and experimentally record the full motion of points in the vibrating web. The proposed work will also be the first study to quantitatively investigate the mechanics of "active probing" behavior, in which the spider plucks or shakes its web to look for changes in its dynamic properties, which would indicate the presence of a prey or predator animal in the web.

蛛网上的振动是许多蜘蛛感知信息的主要来源。最著名的是，它们告诉蜘蛛被困在网中的猎物的位置；蛛网的振动还携带着潜在配偶发出的信号，并提醒蜘蛛注意自己的捕食者的存在。其中一些捕食者反过来利用蛛网的振动来发出误导的信号，诱使蜘蛛伏击，或者在其他蛛网干扰中“隐藏”它们的接近。了解网的几何形状和组成（网是由几种类型的丝编织而成）如何影响这些线索的传播，因此对理解蜘蛛的行为和生态起着重要的作用。生物学家对这些现象进行了实验研究，例如，测量不同几何形状导致的蛛网频率响应。对网络振动建模的关注要少得多，尽管这种模型可以提供额外的见解。例如，在频率响应研究中，实验者被限制在自然的网络或那些没有线程的网络上工作，并且不能测试任意改变线程模式或类型的影响，这对于理解网页设计至关重要。该项目将填补这一空白，通过新一代生物和人工织网实验支持的弦网振动计算模型来探索蜘蛛网的设计。这项提议的工作的关键影响是为生物学家和其他非动力系统专业人士提供复杂的现代振动模型。蜘蛛如何找到猎物是一个引人入胜的故事，将激发K-12学生了解物理、数学、生物和工程之间的相互作用；pi将开发一个简化的“教学”版本的界面，通过俄勒冈州立大学的中学推广计划和“扩展你的视野”伯克利分会分发，“扩展你的视野”是一个促进中学生参与STEM领域的组织。特别是，PI将研究蛛网的几何形状和组成如何影响蜘蛛用来定位和识别被困猎物的振动信号的传输。PI将把现代动力系统理论和实验技术应用于生物学研究中公认的需要，并以此扩展对弦网络物理学的理解。与以往的研究相比，本文将首次明确定量地考虑整个腹板的振动能量路径，寻找振动响应中的非线性效应，并通过实验记录振动腹板中点的完整运动。这项提议的工作也将是第一个定量调查“主动探测”行为机制的研究，在这种行为中，蜘蛛拔或摇它的网来寻找它的动态特性的变化，这将表明网中有猎物或捕食者的存在。