Examining links between behaviour, plasticity and diversification under environmental heterogeneity using broadly distributed spider species

Principal Investigator: Maydianne Andrade

Department: Biological Sciences

Grant Names: NSERC ; Discovery Grant ;

Award Years: 2017 to 2022

Summary:

Understanding factors that drive and maintain biodiversity is a critical issue in contemporary biology, particularly as species are exposed to rapid climate change, habitat fragmentation, and other environmental alterations that challenge survival. One area that may have predictive power is the study of plasticity -- essentially, how and when organisms will vary in trait expression, even when genotypes are identical. Plasticity may confer resilience on populations exposed to environmental challenges, by allowing survival under a wider range of conditions than would otherwise be possible, and provide sufficient time for adaptation.

There are many hypotheses for the evolution of different forms of plasticity, and many of these have been comprehensively tested in plants and model systems (e.g., Drosophila). Our understanding is hampered by the limited taxonomic range over which these ideas have been tested. Here I propose studies that will provide a significant leap in understanding by focusing on tests of adaptive plasticity in widely distributed taxa for which measurements of fitness and traits variation in the field are tractable, and which can be reared in the laboratory for experimental tests of adaptation. My students and I will use species of ‘widow’ spiders and a local jumping spider to ask about the scale of variation that affects adaptation and plasticity as a function of mating behaviour and sex. We will study multiple populations of two species of widow spiders whose extreme mating behaviour (including cannibalism, mating plugs and genital mutilation) is well known to assay links between phenotypes, fitness, and environmental variation in the field and lab. The work will examine phenotypic variation and environmental correlates with focus ranging from fine-grained ecological and social function to evolutionary patterns, making a significant contribution to understanding the conditions that shape both taxonomic and geographic patterns of diversity.