20th International Congress of Arachnology

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DENVER MUSEUM OF NATURE & SCIENCE REPORTS | No. 3, July 2, 2016
20th International Congress of Arachnology
ABSTRACTS
Abstracts of keynote speakers are listed first in order of
presentation, followed by other abstracts in alphabetical
order by first author. Underlined indicates presenting
author, *indicates presentation in student competition.
Only students with an * are in the competition.
PLENARY presentation–Sunday, July 3
Trans-taxa: spiders that dress as ants
Ximena Nelson
School of Biological Sciences, University of Canter-
bury, Christchurch, New Zealand
Batesian mimicry is a classic evolutionary phenom-
enon whereby animals experience reduced predation
as a consequence of their resemblance to noxious,
dangerous or unpalatable animals. Jumping spiders
(Salticidae) are the largest family of spiders, and the
genus Myrmarachne, with over 220 species, is the
largest among the salticids. Myrmarachne are all
ant-like spiders and appear to be Batesian mimics,
using both appearance and behaviour to enhance their
resemblance to ants. The interactions of ants, Myrma-
rachne and non-ant-like salticids provide a framework
to thoroughly explore Batesian mimicry theory. In
particular, I will discuss the effects of behavioural
mimicry and costs associated with Batesian mimicry,
including species recognition and effects of sexual
selection.
Keywords: mimicry, Salticidae, Myrmarachne, ant-like
PLENARY presentation–Monday, July 4
Spider phylogenomics: untangling the
spider tree of life
Jason Bond
Biological Sciences, Auburn University, Alabama, USA
Phylogenomic inference is transforming systematic biology
by allowing systematists to confidently resolve many major
branches of the Tree of Life, even for ancient groups that
may have diversified quickly and are systematically
difficult. Spiders are massively abundant generalist
predators that are found in nearly every ecosystem
on the planet and have persisted for over 380 million
years. In addition to tremendous species diversity and
importance in terrestrial ecosystems, they are also
known for their extraordinary biomaterials like silks
and venoms. The group has long provided evolutionary
models for studying complex mating and web spin-
ning behaviors, key innovation and adaptive radiation
hypotheses, and has been inspiration for important
theories like sexual selection by female choice. Past
attempts to reconstruct spider phylogeny using stan-
dard molecular markers have been unable to produce
a well-supported phylogenetic framework for the entire
order. I will discuss a number of current efforts, in
collaboration with others, to further resolve spider
phylogenetic relationships using transcriptome and
other genomics-based data. These data provide consid-
erable insight into our understanding of web evolution,
rates of diversification across the order, and seemingly
indicate that major changes in spider classification are
likely warranted.
PLENARY presentation–Tuesday, July 5
Evolution of spider silk genes
Cheryl Hayashi
Department of Biology, University of California
Riverside, California, USA
Spiders are unparalleled among arthropods for the
many types of silks they spin. Silks are mostly protein
and this presentation will focus on the genes that
encode the silk proteins. I will trace the history of
advances made in characterizing spider silk genes,
from the initial gene-by-gene cloning efforts to recent
transcriptomic and genomic studies. The most well
known silk genes belong to a single gene family, the
spidroin gene family, and analyses have shown that
spidroin gene evolution has been dramatically shaped
by gene duplication, followed by episodes of divergence
and conservation. However, spidroins are not the entire