Molecular Phylogeny of Moth-Specialized Spider Sub-Family Cyrtarachninae, which Includes Bolas Spiders

Tanikawa, Akio; Shinkai, Akira; Miyashita, Tadashi

doi:10.2108/zs140034

Cited by 12 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…Our results support those of Tanikawa et al. (), who did not include Exechocentrus from Madagascar, but included the Australian Ordgarius. Mastophora is a large New World genus of 50 species, and, unusually, is most diverse in north and south temperate rather than tropical regions (Levi, ).…”

Section: Taxonomic Resultssupporting

confidence: 92%

“…Our result supports those of Tanikawa et al. (), who only included three genes and much fewer outgroup taxa and did not include Aranoethra . They also found strong support for a sister group relationship to mastophorines, but because they only included Gasteracantha kuhli as the outgroup in their study, the validity of the sister group relationship remained to be tested.…”

Section: Taxonomic Resultssupporting

confidence: 92%

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Phylogeny of the orb‐weaving spider family Araneidae (Araneae: Araneoidea)

et al. 2019

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We present a new phylogeny of the spider family Araneidae based on five genes (28S, 18S, COI, H3 and 16S) for 158 taxa, identified and mainly sequenced by us. This includes 25 outgroups and 133 araneid ingroups representing the subfamilies Zygiellinae Simon, 1929, Nephilinae Simon, 1894, and the typical araneids, here informally named the "ARA Clade". The araneid genera analysed here include roughly 90% of all currently named araneid species. The ARA Clade is the primary focus of this analysis. In taxonomic terms, outgroups comprise 22 genera and 11 families, and the ingroup comprises three Zygiellinae and four Nephilinae genera, and 85 ARA Clade genera (ten new). Within the ARA Clade, we recognize ten informal groups that contain at least three genera each and are supported under Bayesian posterior probabilities (≥ 0.95): Telaprocera, but the placement of these genera was generally ambiguous, except for Paraplectanoides, which is strongly supported as sister to traditional Nephilinae. Araneus, Argiope, Eriophora and Larinia are polyphyletic, Araneus implying nine new taxa of genus rank, and Eriophora and Larinia two each. In Araneus and Eriophora, polyphyly was usually due to north temperate generic concepts being used as dumping grounds for species from southern hemisphere regions, e.g. South-East Asia, Australia or New Zealand. Although Araneidae is one of the better studied spider families, too little natural history and/or morphological data are available across these terminals to draw any strong evolutionary conclusions. However, the classical orb web is reconstructed as plesiomorphic for Araneidae, with a single loss in "cyrtarachnines"-"mastophorines". Web decorations (collectively known as stabilimenta) evolved perhaps five times. Sexual dimorphism generally results from female body size increase with few exceptions; dimorphic taxa are not monophyletic and revert to monomorphism in a few cases.

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Section: Taxonomic Resultssupporting

confidence: 92%

Section: Taxonomic Resultssupporting

confidence: 92%

Phylogeny of the orb‐weaving spider family Araneidae (Araneae: Araneoidea)

et al. 2019

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“…Nine mature female Cyrtarachne akirai (Tanikawa, Shinkai, & Miyashita, ) were collected from tall grass surrounding several rice paddy fields in Chiba prefecture, Japan from June 2015 to September 2015 (35.65635 ° N, 140.2425° E). Cyrtarachne were collected in tubes and then immediately shipped to The University of Akron where they were housed in the laboratory for 2 to 3 months.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Silk structure rather than tensile mechanics explains web performance in the moth‐specialized spider, Cyrtarachne

Díaz

Tanikawa²,

Miyashita³

et al. 2018

J Exp Zool Pt A

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Orb webs intercept and retain prey so spiders may subdue them. Orb webs are composed of sticky, compliant spirals of capture silk spun across strong, stiff major ampullate silk threads. Interplay between differences in the mechanical properties of these silks is crucial for prey capture. Most orb webs depend upon insects contacting several radial and capture threads for successful retention. Moths, however, escape quickly from most orb webs due to the sacrificial scales covering their bodies. Cyrtarachne orb webs are unusual as they contain a reduced number of capture threads and moths stick unusually well to single threads. We aimed to determine how the tensile properties of the capture spiral and radial threads spun by Cyrtarachne operate in retention of moth prey. A NanoBionix UTM was used to quantify the material properties of flagelliform and major ampullate threads to test if Cyrtarachne's reduced web architecture is accompanied by improvements in tensile performance of its silk. Silk threads showed tensile properties typical of less-specialized orb-weavers, with the exception of high extensibility in radial threads. Radial thread diameters were 62.5% smaller than flagelliform threads, where commonly the two are roughly similar. We utilized our tensile data to create a finite element model of Cyrtarachne's web to investigate energy dissipation during prey impact. Large cross-sectional area of the flagelliform threads played a key role in enabling single capture threads to withstand prey impact. Rather than extraordinary silk, Cyrtarachne utilizes structural changes in the size and attachment of silk threads to facilitate web function.

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“…We highlight one type of silk, aggregate glue, which functions as a biological adhesive (Foelix, 2011;Townley and Tillinghast, 2013). As a case study to understand how a performance-enhancing material functions from genome through organism to ecology, we provide our framework for the work we are currently conducting on the conditional performance and evolution of the aggregate glue produced by the moth-specialist spider Cyrtarachne akirai (Tanikawa et al, 2014;Araneidae). In this system, there is a clearly defined eco-evolutionary innovation: C. akirai and related species have evolved a trait that is not found in any other spiders; namely, a glue that can overcome the scales of moths.…”

Section: Conditional Performance Of Structural Materialsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Connecting materials, performance and evolution: a case study of the glue of moth-catching spiders (Cyrtarachninae)

Díaz

Baker

Long

et al. 2022

Journal of Experimental Biology

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Morphological structures and extended phenotypes are made possible by materials that are encoded by the genome. Nearly all biomaterials are viscoelastic, which means that to understand performance, one must understand the strain rate-dependent properties of these materials in relevant ecological interactions, as the behavior of a material can vary dramatically and rapidly. Spider silks are an example of materials whose properties vary substantially intra- and inter-specifically. Here, we focus on aggregate silk, which functions as a biological adhesive. As a case study to understand how a material manifests from genome through organism to ecology, we highlight moth-specialist spiders, the Cyrtarachninae, and their glues as an ideal experimental system to investigate the relationship between genomics and ecologically variable performance of a biological material. There is a clear eco-evolutionary innovation that Cyrtarachne akirai and related species have evolved, a unique trait not found in other spiders, a glue which overcomes the scales of moths. By examining traditional orb-weavers, C. akirai and other subfamily members using biomechanical testing and genomic analysis, we argue that we can track the evolution of this novel bioadhesive and comment on the selection pressures influencing prey specialization. The importance of the ecological context of materials testing is exemplified by the poor performance of C. akirai glue on glass and the exceptional spreading ability and adhesive strength on moths. The genetic basis for these performance properties is experimentally tractable because spider silk genes are minimally pleiotropic and advances in genomic technologies now make possible the discovery of complete silk gene sequences.

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Molecular Phylogeny of Moth-Specialized Spider Sub-Family Cyrtarachninae, which Includes Bolas Spiders

Cited by 12 publications

References 21 publications

Phylogeny of the orb‐weaving spider family Araneidae (Araneae: Araneoidea)

Phylogeny of the orb‐weaving spider family Araneidae (Araneae: Araneoidea)

Silk structure rather than tensile mechanics explains web performance in the moth‐specialized spider, Cyrtarachne

Connecting materials, performance and evolution: a case study of the glue of moth-catching spiders (Cyrtarachninae)

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