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

如果关于蜘蛛，每个人都知道一件事，那就是它们是致命的昆虫猎人，它们用超强丝织成的网捕捉昆虫。研究蜘蛛可以提供大量的工程学见解，通过检查专门的感官系统，以及它们用来探测和捕获猎物的蛛网和丝绸的巧妙使用。这个项目的重点是撒网的恐龙蜘蛛，这种蜘蛛通过攻击移动的昆虫来捕食，这些昆虫被它们的腿固定在小的矩形网中。这项研究将研究恐龙类蜘蛛的大眼睛，这种眼睛在夜间用于狩猎。预计该项目将在实际应用中产生效果。例如，他们眼睛的生化和生理设计特征有望揭示出新的见解，可以应用于夜间运动敏感设备。此外，蜘蛛丝的显著物理特性--即其拉伸强度、韧性和柔韧性--目前正被工业用于消费、工业和军事用途。该项目还将产生教育影响，为未被充分代表的高中生和本科生提供研究机会，并开发一种英语和西班牙语的互动双语游戏，帮助通过建模教授儿童数学。这些活动将扩大对科学的参与，并帮助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：感觉系统如何变得专门化，这些专门化背后的机制是什么？投网蜘蛛(蜘蛛科)提供了一个令人兴奋的模型，因为它们的高度专门化的感官系统用于在几乎完全黑暗的情况下捕获猎物。撒网蜘蛛依靠的是地球上对光最敏感的大眼睛。然而，一些精选物种的眼睛很小，但在相似的条件下觅食。最近的一项发现显示，蜘蛛使用通过丝绸传输的声音信息来感知环境并捕获空中猎物。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固有的，但对这些权衡如何表现和进化的理解是有限的，还没有在多个生物学水平上以比较的方式详细研究。要实现这种对权衡的深刻理解，需要综合的方法和愿意弥合其子学科之间相当大差距的多样化的调查团队。这项研究将在不同生物学领域具有互补专业知识的研究人员之间建立联系。他们将共同确定恐龙体内非凡的视觉和听觉适应的遗传、生理、形态和行为机制，并阐明相对投资在不同生态条件下是如何演变的。多学科经验实验的结果将被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。早期职业研究人员的交叉培训也将加强几代人综合生物学的管道。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势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.