PEET: Monographic Research in Araneoid Spider Systematics

小行星9712353 蜘蛛数量众多，分布广泛，对人类事务有直接影响。 大约有30种蜘蛛会造成医学上重要的咬伤;更普遍的是，蜘蛛毒液被用于医学和制药研究。 蜘蛛丝具有非凡的物理特性;丝及其成分是具有可能的商业应用的生物技术研究的焦点。 蜘蛛还调节自然和农业环境中的昆虫种群。 然而，人们对蜘蛛的多样性和生物学了解不够。 科学界已知的物种大约有36,000种，不到地球上已知物种的一半。 热带和南半球温带地区的动物群知之甚少。 即使对于所描述的物种，准确的识别手册，检索表，专著和系统发育分析，在大多数情况下，缺乏。 在这个PEET提案中，Gustavo Hormiga，John科丁顿和同事们将通过在蜘蛛类（蜘蛛目）蜘蛛的三个亚科（Linyphiidae; Theridiidae; Tetragnathidae）内进行专题研究来改善蜘蛛分类学的状况。 专题研究将利用博物馆和野外收集的标本描述新物种，制作物种检索表，重建物种之间的系统发育关系，并开发一个连接文本、数据和图像文件的计算机信息系统，并通过万维网和光盘提供。在项目的过程中。

9712353 HORMIGA Spiders are numerous, widespread and have a direct impact on human affairs. About 30 species inflict medically important bites; more generally, spider venoms are used in medical and pharmaceutical research. Spider silk has extraordinary physical properties; silks and their constituents are foci of biotechnological research with possible commercial applications. Spiders also regulate insect populations in natural and agricultural environments. Nevertheless spider diversity and biology are inadequately understood. About 36,000 species are known to science, less than half of the number thought to be present on Earth. Faunas in tropical and Southern Hemisphere temperate areas are most poorly known. Even for the described species, accurate identification manuals, keys, monographs and phylogenetic analyses are, for the most part, lacking. In this PEET proposal, Gustavo Hormiga, John Coddington and colleagues will improve the state of spider taxonomy by conducting monographic research within three subfamilies (Linyphiidae; Theridiidae; Tetragnathidae) of araneoid (Araneae) spiders. The monographic research will make use of museum and field-collected specimens to describe new species, produce keys to species, reconstruct phylogenetic relationships among the species, and develop a computerized information system linking text, data, and image files and available via the World Wide Web and CD-ROM. The research will train three new taxonomists in modern methods, developed and applied to spiders, during the course of the project.