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Diversity
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Systematics and Evolution of Spiders
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Systematics and Evolution of Spiders

A special issue of Diversity (ISSN 1424-2818). This special issue belongs to the section "Animal Diversity".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 September 2019) | Viewed by 27889

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Dimitar Dimitrov

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Guest Editor
Natural History Museum, University Museum of Bergen, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway
Interests: spider taxonomy, evolution, and systematics; molecular systematics, phylogenetics, phylogenomics, computational systematics; macroecology, biodiversity modeling and conservation, biogeography, and phylogeography. In my current research I aim to understand how underlying evolutionary and ecological process generate and maintain biodiversity through time and space
Dr. Sara Goodacre

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Guest Editor
School of Life Sciences, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK
Interests: evolutionary biology and ecology of spiders; population genetics and genomics; interaction between spiders and their bacterial endosymbionts; diversification of spider silk gene families. My research uses molecular genetic tools to study patterns of variation within and among species in order to understand the factors that explain this diversity

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Spiders are among the most diverse organismal groups on Earth, yet there are still major gaps in our knowledge about their evolutionary history and current diversity. In recent years, the number of large-scale phylogenetics studies and the introduction of “omics” approaches to spider systematics has significantly advanced our understanding of higher-level spider relationships. At the same time, we still know relatively little about their macroevolution and large-scale diversity patterns. Such knowledge is crucial to understand the drivers of current spider diversity and distributions and assess the threats to which they are exposed by global warming, habitat destruction, and contamination.

This Special Issue aims to gather manuscripts on diverse topics related to spider systematics and evolution that enhance our understanding of (1) their macroevolutionary patterns; (2) their current richness and distributional patterns; and (3) the potential effects of global warming on spiders’ future diversity and distributions.

Dr. Dimitar Dimitrov
Dr. Sara Goodacre
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Diversity is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2100 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • Phylogenetics
  • Biogeography
  • Phylogeography
  • Diversification
  • Biodiversity
  • Speciation
  • Host–parasite co-evolution

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Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

23 pages, 1690 KiB  
Article
Building a Robust, Densely-Sampled Spider Tree of Life for Ecosystem Research
by Nuria Macías-Hernández, Marc Domènech, Pedro Cardoso, Brent C. Emerson, Paulo Alexandre Vieira Borges, Jesús Lozano-Fernandez, Octávio S. Paulo, Ana Vieira, Alba Enguídanos, François Rigal, Isabel R. Amorim and Miquel A. Arnedo
Diversity 2020, 12(8), 288; https://doi.org/10.3390/d12080288 - 23 Jul 2020
Cited by 18 | Viewed by 6476
Abstract
Phylogenetic relatedness is a key diversity measure for the analysis and understanding of how species and communities evolve across time and space. Understanding the nonrandom loss of species with respect to phylogeny is also essential for better-informed conservation decisions. However, several factors are [...] Read more.
Phylogenetic relatedness is a key diversity measure for the analysis and understanding of how species and communities evolve across time and space. Understanding the nonrandom loss of species with respect to phylogeny is also essential for better-informed conservation decisions. However, several factors are known to influence phylogenetic reconstruction and, ultimately, phylogenetic diversity metrics. In this study, we empirically tested how some of these factors (topological constraint, taxon sampling, genetic markers and calibration) affect phylogenetic resolution and uncertainty. We built a densely sampled, species-level phylogenetic tree for spiders, combining Sanger sequencing of species from local communities of two biogeographical regions (Iberian Peninsula and Macaronesia) with a taxon-rich backbone matrix of Genbank sequences and a topological constraint derived from recent phylogenomic studies. The resulting tree constitutes the most complete spider phylogeny to date, both in terms of terminals and background information, and may serve as a standard reference for the analysis of phylogenetic diversity patterns at the community level. We then used this tree to investigate how partial data affect phylogenetic reconstruction, phylogenetic diversity estimates and their rankings, and, ultimately, the ecological processes inferred for each community. We found that the incorporation of a single slowly evolving marker (28S) to the DNA barcode sequences from local communities, had the highest impact on tree topology, closely followed by the use of a backbone matrix. The increase in missing data resulting from combining partial sequences from local communities only had a moderate impact on the resulting trees, similar to the difference observed when using topological constraints. Our study further revealed substantial differences in both the phylogenetic structure and diversity rankings of the analyzed communities estimated from the different phylogenetic treatments, especially when using non-ultrametric trees (phylograms) instead of time-stamped trees (chronograms). Finally, we provide some recommendations on reconstructing phylogenetic trees to infer phylogenetic diversity within ecological studies. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Systematics and Evolution of Spiders)
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11 pages, 2578 KiB  
Article
Relative Efficiency of Pitfall Trapping vs. Nocturnal Hand Collecting in Assessing Soil-Dwelling Spider Diversity along A Structural Gradient of Neotropical Habitats
by Kaïna Privet, Vincent Vedel, Claire Fortunel, Jérôme Orivel, Quentin Martinez, Axel Cerdan, Christopher Baraloto and Julien Pétillon
Diversity 2020, 12(2), 81; https://doi.org/10.3390/d12020081 - 19 Feb 2020
Cited by 15 | Viewed by 4569
Abstract
Assessing spider diversity remains a great challenge, especially in tropical habitats where dozens of species can locally co-occur. Pitfall trapping is one of the most widely used techniques to collect spiders, but it suffers from several biases, and its accuracy likely varies with [...] Read more.
Assessing spider diversity remains a great challenge, especially in tropical habitats where dozens of species can locally co-occur. Pitfall trapping is one of the most widely used techniques to collect spiders, but it suffers from several biases, and its accuracy likely varies with habitat complexity. In this study, we compared the efficiency of passive pitfall trapping versus active nocturnal hand collecting (NHC) to capture low understory-dwelling spider taxonomical (morpho-species) and functional (hunting guilds) diversity along a structural gradient of habitats in French Guiana. We focused on four habitats describing a structural gradient: garden to the orchard to the forest edge to the undisturbed forest. Overall, estimated morpho-species richness and composition did not vary consistently between habitats, but abundances of ground-hunting spiders decreased significantly with increasing habitat complexity. We found habitat-dependence differences in taxonomic diversity between sampling strategies: NHC revealed higher diversity in the orchard, whereas pitfalls resulted in higher diversity in the forest. Species turnover resulted in high dissimilarity in species composition between habitats using either method. This study shows how pitfall trapping is influenced by habitat structure, rendering this sampling method incomplete for complex, tropical environments. However, pitfall traps remain a valuable component of inventories because they sample distinct assemblage of spiders. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Systematics and Evolution of Spiders)
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11 pages, 1231 KiB  
Article
The Evolution of Dragline Initiation in Spiders: Multiple Transitions from Multi- to Single-Gland Usage
by Jonas O. Wolff
Diversity 2020, 12(1), 4; https://doi.org/10.3390/d12010004 - 19 Dec 2019
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 3478
Abstract
Despite the recognition of spider silk as a biological super-material and its dominant role in various aspects of a spider’s life, knowledge on silk use and silk properties is incomplete. This is a major impediment for the general understanding of spider ecology, spider [...] Read more.
Despite the recognition of spider silk as a biological super-material and its dominant role in various aspects of a spider’s life, knowledge on silk use and silk properties is incomplete. This is a major impediment for the general understanding of spider ecology, spider silk evolution and biomaterial prospecting. In particular, the biological role of different types of silk glands is largely unexplored. Here, I report the results from a comparative study of spinneret usage during silk anchor and dragline spinning. I found that the use of both anterior lateral spinnerets (ALS) and posterior median spinnerets (PMS) is the plesiomorphic state of silk anchor and dragline spinning in the Araneomorphae, with transitions to ALS-only use in the Araneoidea and some smaller lineages scattered across the spider tree of life. Opposing the reduction to using a single spinneret pair, few taxa have switched to using all ALS, PMS and the posterior lateral spinnerets (PLS) for silk anchor and dragline formation. Silk fibres from the used spinnerets (major ampullate, minor ampullate and aciniform silk) were generally bundled in draglines after the completion of silk anchor spinning. Araneoid spiders were highly distinct from most other spiders in their draglines, being composed of major ampullate silk only. This indicates that major ampullate silk properties reported from comparative measurements of draglines should be handled with care. These observations call for a closer investigation of the function of different silk glands in spiders. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Systematics and Evolution of Spiders)
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9 pages, 1036 KiB  
Article
The Spider Anatomy Ontology (SPD)—A Versatile Tool to Link Anatomy with Cross-Disciplinary Data
by Martín J. Ramírez and Peter Michalik
Diversity 2019, 11(10), 202; https://doi.org/10.3390/d11100202 - 22 Oct 2019
Cited by 20 | Viewed by 7415
Abstract
Spiders are a diverse group with a high eco-morphological diversity, which complicates anatomical descriptions especially with regard to its terminology. New terms are constantly proposed, and definitions and limits of anatomical concepts are regularly updated. Therefore, it is often challenging to find the [...] Read more.
Spiders are a diverse group with a high eco-morphological diversity, which complicates anatomical descriptions especially with regard to its terminology. New terms are constantly proposed, and definitions and limits of anatomical concepts are regularly updated. Therefore, it is often challenging to find the correct terms, even for trained scientists, especially when the terminology has obstacles such as synonyms, disputed definitions, ambiguities, or homonyms. Here, we present the Spider Anatomy Ontology (SPD), which we developed combining the functionality of a glossary (a controlled defined vocabulary) with a network of formalized relations between terms that can be used to compute inferences. The SPD follows the guidelines of the Open Biomedical Ontologies and is available through the NCBO BioPortal (ver. 1.1). It constitutes of 757 valid terms and definitions, is rooted with the Common Anatomy Reference Ontology (CARO), and has cross references to other ontologies, especially of arthropods. The SPD offers a wealth of anatomical knowledge that can be used as a resource for any scientific study as, for example, to link images to phylogenetic datasets, compute structural complexity over phylogenies, and produce ancestral ontologies. By using a common reference in a standardized way, the SPD will help bridge diverse disciplines, such as genomics, taxonomy, systematics, evolution, ecology, and behavior. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Systematics and Evolution of Spiders)
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16 pages, 1321 KiB  
Article
Exploring the Interplay Between Local and Regional Drivers of Distribution of a Subterranean Organism
by Stefano Mammola, Shlomi Aharon, Merav Seifan, Yael Lubin and Efrat Gavish-Regev
Diversity 2019, 11(8), 119; https://doi.org/10.3390/d11080119 - 25 Jul 2019
Cited by 9 | Viewed by 4733
Abstract
Caves are excellent model systems to study the effects of abiotic factors on species distributions due to their selective conditions. Different ecological factors have been shown to affect species distribution depending on the scale of analysis, whether regional or local. The interplay between [...] Read more.
Caves are excellent model systems to study the effects of abiotic factors on species distributions due to their selective conditions. Different ecological factors have been shown to affect species distribution depending on the scale of analysis, whether regional or local. The interplay between local and regional factors in explaining the spatial distribution of cave-dwelling organisms is poorly understood. Using the troglophilic subterranean spider Artema nephilit (Araneae: Pholcidae) as a model organism, we investigated whether similar environmental predictors drive the species distribution at these two spatial scales. At the local scale, we monitored the abundance of the spiders and measured relevant environmental features in 33 caves along the Jordan Rift Valley. We then extended the analysis to a regional scale, investigating the drivers of the distribution using species distribution models. We found that similar ecological factors determined the distribution at both local and regional scales for A. nephilit. At a local scale, the species was found to preferentially occupy the outermost, illuminated, and warmer sectors of caves. Similarly, mean annual temperature, annual temperature range, and solar radiation were the most important drivers of its regional distribution. By investigating these two spatial scales simultaneously, we showed that it was possible to achieve an in-depth understanding of the environmental conditions that governs subterranean species distribution. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Systematics and Evolution of Spiders)
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