Grand challenges in research on arachnid diversity, conservation, and biogeography

Grand challenges in arachnid genetics and biomaterials

“…Managing and integrating vast amounts of genomic, transcriptomic, and proteomic data, including trait specific or whole genome or transcriptome data (e.g. Sanggaard et al, 2014;Babb et al, 2017;Garb et al, 2019;Kono et al, 2019;Correa-Garhwal et al, 2020) from different arachnid species poses substantial challenges (Garb et al, 2018;Agnarsson, 2023). The sheer diversity of extant arachnid species unfortunately introduces multiple complexities into any attempts to standardize and normalize genomic data derived from a variety of sources (Garb et al, 2018;Peng et al, 2020;Arakawa et al, 2022).…”

“…Arachnids, particularly spiders, flourish in abundance within most ecosystems (Blamires et al, 2007;Oxbrough and Ziesche, 2013;Henneken et al, 2022;Agnarsson, 2023;Fonseca-Ferreira et al, 2023). Arachnids such as spiders, scorpions and mites create and/or secrete a range of biomaterials, including silks, glues, adhesives, nano-fibres, venoms and other toxins, and chitin associated molecules used to form sensory systems, armour, body colouration/luminescence, and locomotion (Kuntner, 2022).…”

“…Here I review three identified grand challenges (there are certainly more; see Kuntner, 2022;Agnarsson, 2023) in arachnid genetics and biomaterials relevant for this specialty section of Frontiers in Arachnid Science. They being: (1) Arachnid whole genome, transcriptome, and proteome sequencing and annotating, (2) Research on arachnid biomaterials as inspiration for new synthetic materials, and (3) the production and use of synthetic products inspired by arachnid biomaterials.…”

Grand challenges in arachnid toxinology and biochemistry

“…While conservation research into arachnids is still in its infancy (Agnarsson, 2023), international agreements like the Nagoya protocol are already in place in many countries that regulate the protection of natural resources, stipulating the need to acquire permits from the respective countries of origin for utilizing their biological sources (Colmenarez et al, 2023). While the idea behind Nagoya is commendable, i.e.…”

Spiders in Thailand (SIT) via spiderthailand.info: Thailand spider data retrieval system for geographical occurrence and photographic identification

“…Spiders are a group of animals which are highly diverse in several aspects amongst terrestrial invertebrates ( Coddington and Levi 1991 , Kotze et al 2022 ). They are a prominent predator amongst invertebrate communities in the world with a large number of species, more than 50,000 species formally described ( Agnarsson 2023 , World Spider Catalog 2023 ). Based on extracted data from the World Spider Catalog (2024) with interpretation (Petcharad et al, unpublished data), it showed that the study of spiders in Thailand started in 1767, 257 years ago.…”