IntBIO: Collaborative Research: Evolutionary and Functional Trade-offs in Extreme Sensory Capabilities of Nocturnal Predatory Spiders

关于蜘蛛，如果有一件事是大家都“知道”的，那就是它们是致命的昆虫猎手，它们用超强的丝织成的网来捕捉昆虫。通过研究蜘蛛特殊的感觉系统和它们用来探测和捕捉猎物的网和丝的巧妙使用，研究蜘蛛可以提供许多工程学上的见解。这个项目的重点是投网的恐爪目蜘蛛，它们通过击打移动的昆虫来捕猎，并用腿夹住小的矩形网。这项研究将检查恐爪类蜘蛛的大眼睛，它们在夜间用来捕猎。该项目有望产生具有实际应用价值的成果。例如，他们眼睛的生化和生理设计特征有望揭示新的见解，可以应用于夜间运动敏感设备。此外，蜘蛛丝非凡的物理特性——即它的抗拉强度、韧性和柔韧性——目前正被工业用于消费、工业和军事应用。该项目还将对教育产生影响，为代表性不足的高中生和本科生提供研究机会，并开发英语和西班牙语的互动式双语游戏，通过建模帮助儿童教授数学。这些活动将扩大对科学的参与，并有助于培训下一代科学工作者。这个项目将解决需要综合方法的复杂问题：感觉系统是如何变得专业化的，这些专业化背后的机制是什么？抛网蜘蛛（Deinopidae）提供了一个令人兴奋的模型，因为它们高度专业化的感觉系统用于在几乎完全黑暗的环境中捕获猎物。撒网蜘蛛依靠的是地球上最感光的大眼睛。然而，一些精选物种的眼睛很小，但在类似的条件下觅食。最近的一项发现表明，蜘蛛利用通过丝传递的声音信息来感知环境并捕捉空中猎物。这表明感觉系统之间的权衡是适应性变化的驱动因素。功能权衡是所有感官系统所固有的，但对这些权衡如何表现和进化的理解是有限的，并且没有在多个生物水平上以比较的方式进行详细的研究。实现这种对权衡的深刻理解需要综合的方法和一个多样化的研究团队，他们愿意弥合各自分支学科之间的巨大差距。这项研究将在不同生物领域具有互补专业知识的研究人员之间建立联系。他们将共同确定恐爪类动物非凡的视觉和听觉适应的遗传、生理、形态和行为机制，并阐明在不同的生态条件下相关投资是如何演变的。多学科经验实验的结果将整合到生态和进化模型中，以产生适用于其他生物系统的感官进化预测。对早期职业研究者的交叉培训也将加强几代人对综合生物学的研究。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

If there is one thing everyone “knows” about spiders, it’s that they are deadly hunters of insects, which they catch with webs spun of super-strong silk. Studying spiders can provide numerous engineering insights by examining the specialized sensory systems and ingenious uses of webs and silk they use for detecting and capturing prey. This project focuses on net-casting deinopid spiders that hunt by striking at moving insects that they ensnare in small rectangular webs held with their legs. This study will examine the large eyes of deinopid spiders, eyes that are used at night to hunt. The project is expected to produce results with practical applications. For example, the biochemical and physiological design features of their eyes are expected to reveal new insights that could be applied for night motion-sensitive devices. In addition, the remarkable physical properties of spider silk--namely, its tensile strength, toughness, and flexibility--are currently being exploited by industry for consumer, industrial, and military applications. This project will also have educational impacts by providing research opportunities for under-represented high school and undergraduate students and by developing an interactive bilingual game in English and Spanish to help teach children mathematics through modeling. These activities will broaden participation in science and help train the next generation of the scientific workforce. This project will address complex questions requiring an integrative approach: How do sensory systems become specialized and what are the mechanisms behind these specializations? Net-casting spiders (Deinopidae) present an exciting model given their highly specialized sensory systems used to capture prey in near-total darkness. Net-casting spiders rely on enlarged eyes that are among the most light-sensitive on Earth. Yet some select species have diminutive eyes but forage under similar conditions. A recent discovery revealed that spiders use acoustic information transmitted through silk to perceive their environment and capture aerial prey. This suggests that trade-offs between sensory systems are a driver of adaptive variation. Functional trade-offs are inherent to all sensory systems, but the understanding of how these trade-offs manifest and evolve is limited and has not been studied in detail in a comparative fashion across multiple biological levels. Achieving this deep understanding of trade-offs requires integrative approaches and a diverse team of investigators willing to bridge the considerable gaps between their subdisciplines. This research will forge connections among investigators with complementary expertise in disparate biological fields. Together, they will identify the genetic, physiological, morphological, and behavioral mechanisms underlying the extraordinary visual and acoustic sensory adaptations within deinopids and elucidate how relative investments evolve in different ecological conditions. Results from the multidisciplinary empirical experiments will be integrated into an ecological and evolutionary model to generate predictions about sensory evolution that will be applicable to other biological systems. Cross-training of early career investigators will also strengthen the pipeline for integrative biology for generations.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.