SUMMARY The sticky prey capture threads of orb-webs are critical to web performance. By retaining insects that strike the web, these spirally arrayed threads allow a spider time to locate and subdue prey. The viscous capture threads spun by modern orb-weaving spiders of the Araneoidea clade replaced the dry, fuzzy cribellar capture threads of the Deinopoidea and feature regularly spaced moist, adhesive droplets. The stickiness of a cribellar thread is limited by its tendency to peel from a surface after the adhesion generated at the edges of contact is exceeded. In this study we test the hypothesis that viscous thread overcomes this limitation by implementing a suspension bridge mechanism (SBM) that recruits the adhesion of multiple thread droplets. We do so by using contact plates of four widths to measure the stickiness of six species' viscous threads whose profiles range from small, closely spaced droplets to large, widely spaced droplets. The increased stickiness registered by an increased number of thread droplets supports the operation of a SBM. However, the accompanying decrease in mean per droplet adhesion shows that droplets interior to the edges of thread contact contribute successively less adhesion. Models developed from these data suggest that the suspension bridge mechanism is limited to a span of approximately 12 droplets.

SUMMARYSticky viscous prey capture threads form the spiral elements of spider orb-webs and are responsible for retaining insects that strike a web. These threads are formed of regularly spaced aqueous droplets that surround a pair of supporting axial fibers. When a thread is flattened on a microscope slide a small, opaque granule can usually be seen within each droplet. These granules have been thought to be the glycoprotein glue that imparts thread adhesion. Both independent contrast and standard regressions showed that granule size is directly related to droplet volume and indicated that granule volume is about 15% of droplet volume. We attempted to find support for the hypothesized adhesive role of granules by establishing an association between the contact surface area and volume of these granules and the stickiness of the viscous threads of 16 species in the context of a six-variable model that describes thread stickiness. However, we found that granule size made either an insignificant or a small negative contribution to thread stickiness. Consequently, we hypothesize that granules serve to anchor larger, surrounding layers of transparent glycoprotein glue to the axial fibers of the thread, thereby equipping droplets to resist slippage on the axial fibers as these droplets generate adhesion, elongate under a load, and transfer force to the axial fibers.

SUMMARYThe sticky viscous capture threads in araneoid orb-webs are responsible for retaining insects that strike these webs. We used features of 16 species' threads and the stickiness that they expressed on contact plates of four widths to model their adhesive delivery systems. Our results confirm that droplets at the edges of thread contact contribute the greatest adhesion, with each successively interior droplet contributing only 0.70 as much adhesion. Thus, regardless of the size and spacing of a thread's large primary droplets, little adhesion accrues beyond a span of 20 droplets. From this pattern we computed effective droplet number (EDN), an index that describes the total droplet equivalents that contribute to the stickiness of thread spans. EDN makes the greatest positive contribution to thread stickiness, followed by an index of the shape and size of primary droplets, and the volume of small secondary droplets. The proportion of water in droplets makes the single greatest negative contribution to thread stickiness, followed by a thread's extensibility, and the area of flattened droplets. Although highly significant, this six-variable model failed to convincingly describe the stickiness of six species, a problem resolved when species were assigned to three groups and a separate model was constructed for each. These models place different weights on the variables and, in some cases, reverse or exclude the contribution of a variable. Differences in threads may adapt them to particular habitats, web architectures or prey types, or they may be shaped by a species' phylogeny or metabolic capabilities.

SUMMARYThe viscous capture threads produced by over 4000 species of orb-weaving spiders are formed of regularly spaced aqueous droplets supported by a pair of axial fibers. These threads register increased stickiness when spans of increasing lengths contact a surface, indicating that adhesion is recruited from multiple droplets. This study examined threads produced by five species to test the hypothesis that axial fiber extensibility is crucial for this summation of adhesion. It did so by comparing the stickiness of unstretched threads with threads that had been elongated to reduce the extensibility of their axial fibers. As stretching these threads also increased the distance between their droplets, we measured the stickiness of stretched threads with contact plates whose widths were increased in proportion to the degree of thread elongation. We then accounted for the actual thread elongation achieved for each individual's threads and for differences in the five species' absolute thread extensibility. The results showed that in four species thread extensibility contributed positively to adhesion. For three species, thread extensibility and droplet volume together explained the mean per droplet adhesion of threads. Models based on these three species show that, as threads were elongated, increasing amounts of potential adhesion were lost to diminished axial fiber extensibility. These models indicate that approximately one-third of an unstretched viscous thread's stickiness accrues from the adhesive recruitment made possible by axial fiber extensibility.

Properties of the viscous prey capture threads of araneoid orb spiders change in response to their environment. Relative humidity (RH) affects the performance of the thread's hygroscopic droplets by altering the viscoelasticity of each droplet's adhesive glycoprotein core. Studies that have characterized this performance used smooth glass and steel surfaces and uniform forces. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that these changes in performance translate into differences in prey retention times. We first characterized the glycoprotein contact surface areas and maximum extension lengths of Araneus marmoreus droplets at 20%, 37%, 55%, 72% and 90% RH and then modeled the relative work required to initiate pull-off of a 4 mm thread span, concluding that this species' droplets and threads performed optimally at 72% RH. Next, we evaluated the ability of three equally spaced capture thread strands to retain a house fly at 37%, 55% and 72% RH. Each fly's struggle was captured in a video and bouts of active escape behavior were summed. House flies were retained 11 s longer at 72% RH than at 37% and 55% RH. This difference is ecologically significant because the short time after an insect strikes a web and before a spider begins wrapping it is an insect's only opportunity to escape from the web. Moreover, these results validate the mechanism by which natural selection can tune the performance of an orb spider's capture threads to the humidity of its habitat.