LOW产生的振幅振动扭曲腹部的’可能会阻止男性黑寡妇蜘蛛的求爱工作过早而艰难的结局，是findings ofnew researchpublished in动物学领域今天。臭名昭著的捕食者的女性黑寡妇蜘蛛对入侵者的容忍度较低，受到希望的求婚者的吸引，他们在网站入口处低语这些振动，因此可能避免与猎物混淆。

为了调查男性蜘蛛如何向女性发出信号，而没有出现为猎物，研究人员来自Simon Fraser Universityrecorded the vibrations made by the black widow spider (Latrodectus hesperus）和流浪汉蜘蛛（Tegenaria agrestis) as well as prey items (house flies and crickets) when entering a female’s web. BioMed Central spoke with Catherine Scott, one of the researchers involved in this study, to find out more.

您能告诉我们一些有关您研究的蜘蛛的信息吗？

Female web-building spiders are accomplished predators that are extremely sensitive to vibrations. The web functions as an extension of the spider’s exquisitely tuned sensory system, allowing her to very quickly detect and respond to prey coming into contact with her silk. This presents a prospective mate with a real challenge when he first arrives at a female’s web: he needs to signal his presence and desirability, without triggering the female’s predatory response.

To investigate how male spiders handle this problem, we studied two rather different web-building spider species. The western black widow (in the family Theridiidae) builds a tangle-web, and the hobo spider (family Agelenidae) builds a sheet-web. Female black widows are much larger than males and are highly aggressive, and although sexual cannibalism is rare in this species, courting males are potentially risking their lives. Hobo spider females, on the other hand, are not much bigger than males, and are not aggressive during courtship.

我们预计，男性进入女性网络后传播的最初振动对于避免致命的身份误解至关重要，并且尤其是黑寡妇男性可能会产生与猎物的振动。

你发现了什么？

我们记录了两种类型的网站上的男性，板球和苍蝇产生的振动，并发现，实际上，黑寡妇的求爱信号与猎物振动的不同之处在于Hobo Spider Spider求爱信号。雄性黑寡妇（腹部泄漏）执行的一种行为导致非常刻板的振动，在波形方面与猎物振动特别不同，并且幅度尤为低。When we played these whisper-like vibrations back to females, they were much less likely to elicit a predatory response than louder, prey-like vibrations.

What surprised you about the findings?

One surprising thing about our results was the lack of very stereotyped motifs in the courtship vibrations of either species. This contrasts with the more complex songs of spiders that court on other substrates, like leaf litter or plants.

这可能是因为缠结 - 网络和薄板的复杂性和不规则性必须在我们的研究物种中传递振动信号。在黑寡妇中，似乎只是男性振动的低振幅（尤其是腹部颤抖），就在求爱开始时，这可能是将它们与挣扎的猎物产生的振动区分开来的关键特征。

What are the implications of the study for future work?

With the exception of orb-web weaving species, very little is known about the kinds of vibratory courtship signals that male web-building spiders use to communicate with females through their webs. We’re excited to have added new information about vibratory communication in tangle-web and sheet-web spiders, which will contribute to a better overall understanding of the function and evolution of web-borne vibratory courtship signals. We have also been studying the way that the different types of webs built by hobo spiders and black widows transmit vibrations, to try to gain insight into how these properties might shape the spiders’ communication systems. In this article we’ve provided some basic groundwork that will inform future studies to further investigate the function of specific courtship signals and what kind of information they transmit to the female.

One of the most exciting things we saw was that sometimes, female black widows actually responded with abdomen twitches (similar to the male’s abdomen shaking, but much more emphatic) when we played low-amplitudevibrations to them through their webs. These twitches undoubtedly transmit their own vibrations through the web. While this study focused on male courtship signalling, it would be very interesting to look more at the female’s behaviour, and any signals she may be transmitting back to the male.