Hello Everyone! I hope we all had a long relaxing winter break. I know I've been dying to get back to school and start working on my newest lab project.
This semester I plan to extract DNA from spider webs, and compare that to spider DNA stored in genomic databases. Spiders are notoriously difficult to classify; the juveniles of many species look markedly different from the adults as well as having extreme sexual dimorphism. To show that any two spiders belong to the same species DNA analysis is paramount. However, traditional methods of extracting DNA requires finding, capturing and killing spiders, a difficult task that reduces the overall number of spiders in an area and puts researchers at risk of being bitten.
In addition to the variety found among individuals of the same species, many spiders are secretive, only hunting at night and hiding during the day. To accurately assess the diversity of spiders in an area all species must be included, a nearly impossible task with current DNA extracting methods.
Using spider webs instead of spider body parts as a source of DNA solves both of these problems. The spiders no longer need to be handled and killed, reducing the harm to the spider and danger of envenomation to the researcher. Also many spiders build one web at night leaving it in the morning. Researchers can gather these refuse webs, extract DNA from them and get a more accurate idea of the number and species of spider living in an area.
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0142503
