Spider’s Adhesion (SpiA) Characterization of the ecological nische of cribellate and ecribellate spiders as function of the functionality and evolution of their capture threads

• Applicant: Dr. Anna-Christin Joel
• Subject Area: Ecology and Biodiversity of Animals and Ecosystems, Organismic Interactions ; Animal Physiology and Biochemistry ; Biomaterials
• Term: from 2018 to 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 406021806

• Final Report Year: 2024

Final Report Abstract

Spiders use different strategies to capture prey. A very prominent one is the usage of webs. Different types of capture threads can be included, depending on the spider species. For example, cribellate spider use nanofibers to capture prey, while ecribellate spiders deploy either non-hardening silk as glue coating of their fibres, or do not use any specialized capture threads at all. Typical prey items of spiders are insects, which are covered with waxy cuticular hydrocarbons (CHCs). They are important to reduce evaporation and for communication, among other things. In this project, a general influence of CHCs onto the adhesion force of all types of capture threads could be detected. Most of the time, they increased adhesion. The adhesion force of gluey capture threads was more strongly influenced by CHC composition than the cribellate capture threads. For the later ones, only the presence of CHC was essential to maximise adhesion. The cribellate adhesion mechanism seems to rely on a molecular interaction between CHCs and cribellate silk and the silks mechanical properties were heavily influence by contact to CHCs. Prey spectra analyses indicated that cribellate spiders could be generalist, matching their rather universal adhesion mechanism. On the contrary, spiders with gluey capture threads might rather be specialists for specific prey insects. Adhesion force, however, was not only affected by CHC presence or composition: comparison with native insect surfaces proved also the surface structures, such as setae, influence adhesion. Likewise cribellate spiders themselves after covered by nanoripples, reducing adhesion and thus enabling the spider to not stick to its own capture threads.

Publications

• Same Principles but Different Purposes: Passive Fluid Handling throughout the Animal Kingdom. Integrative and Comparative Biology, 59(6), 1673-1680.
  Joel, Anna-Christin & Weissbach, Margret
  
• Small behavioral adaptations enable more effective prey capture by producing 3D-structured spider threads. Scientific Reports, 9(1).
  Grannemann, Caroline C. F.; Meyer, Marco; Reinhardt, Marian; Ramírez, Martín J.; Herberstein, Marie E. & Joel, Anna-Christin
  
• Biomimetic Combs as Antiadhesive Tools to Manipulate Nanofibers. ACS Applied Nano Materials, 3(4), 3395-3401.
  Joel, Anna-Christin; Meyer, Marco; Heitz, Johannes; Heiss, Alexander; Park, Daesung; Adamova, Hana & Baumgartner, Werner
  
• Uncoiling springs promote mechanical functionality of spider cribellate silk. Journal of Experimental Biology.
  Piorkowski, Dakota; Blackledge, Todd A.; Liao, Chen-Pan; Joel, Anna-Christin; Weissbach, Margret; Wu, Chung-Lin & Tso, I.-Min
  
• Ambient Climate Influences Anti-Adhesion between Biomimetic Structured Foil and Nanofibers. Nanomaterials, 11(12), 3222.
  Meyer, Marco; Buchberger, Gerda; Heitz, Johannes; Baiko, Dariya & Joel, Anna-Christin
  
• Robust substrate anchorages of silk lines with extensible nano-fibres. Soft Matter, 17(34), 7903-7913.
  Wolff, Jonas O.; Liprandi, Daniele; Bosia, Federico; Joel, Anna-Christin & Pugno, Nicola M.
  
• Change of mechanical characteristics in spider silk capture threads after contact with prey. Acta Biomaterialia, 153, 355-363.
  Baumgart, Lucas; Schaa, Eva-Marie; Menzel, Florian & Joel, Anna-Christin
  
• Insect cuticular hydrocarbon composition influences their interaction with spider capture threads. Journal of Experimental Biology, 225(5).
  Joel, Anna-Christin; Schmitt, Dorothea; Baumgart, Lucas & Menzel, Florian
  
• Age-Resilient Stickiness of Capture Threads. Arthropoda, 1(3), 342-349.
  Meyer, Marco & Joel, Anna-Christin
  
• Physico-chemical properties of functionally adhesive spider silk nanofibres. Biomaterials Science, 11(6), 2139-2150.
  Joel, Anna-Christin; Rawal, Aditya; Yao, Yin; Jenner, Andrew; Ariotti, Nicholas; Weissbach, Margret; Adler, Lewis; Stafstrom, Jay & Blamires, Sean J.
  
• Robustness of antiadhesion between nanofibers and surfaces covered with nanoripples of varying spatial period. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, 11.
  Buchberger, Gerda; Meyer, Marco; Plamadeala, Cristina; Weissbach, Margret; Hesser, Günter; Baumgartner, Werner; Heitz, Johannes & Joel, Anna-Christin
  
• Change of Adhesion Properties of Bioinspired Laser-Induced Periodic Nanostructures towards Cribellate Spider Nanofiber Threads by Means of Thin Coatings. Coatings, 14(7), 790.
  Heitz, Johannes; Buchberger, Gerda; Baumgartner, Werner; Meyer, Marco; Weissbach, Margret; Joel, Anna-Christin; Brajnicov, Simona; Palla-Papavlu, Alexandra & Dinescu, Maria
  
• Hierarchical looping results in extreme extensibility of silk fibre composites produced by Southern house spiders ( Kukulcania hibernalis ). Interface Focus, 14(3).
  Liprandi, Daniele; Ramírez, Martin; Schlüter, Sascha; Baumgart, Lucas; Joel, Anna-Christin; Michalik, Peter & Wolff, Jonas O.
  
• The sticky truth: how spider predation success depends on their prey's body surface. Journal of Experimental Biology, 228(9).
  Baumgart, Lucas; Schlüter, Sascha; Moog, Marieke; Schönfeld, Annika; Heß, Adrian; Menzel, Florian & Joel, Anna-Christin