Since its official launch in 2011, EZ lab has expanded to include researchers from two institutions in Slovenia, the National Institute of Biology and the Jovan Hadži Institute of Biology ZRC SAZU, with partner and collaborating laboratories around the globe.
EZ stands for Evolutionary Zoology. Our research covers many topics that bear on animal evolution, with three core areas: Phylogenetic Systematics and Biogeography, Behavioral and Evolutionary Ecology, and Spider Web and Silk Evolution.
Amazing video and construction for web environment. As an entomologist and Latrodectus enthusiast, may i ask how this spider was originally sourced? After a long time living in America, I came to Germany(outside med. Black widow range) for work and now am transferring to the Romanian coastline(within its range). I will be seeking out and rearing my own specimens if possible.
There are two types of small red/orange spiders in webs of large females: the small males, and even smaller kleptoparasitic spiders of several species. :)
Hi, Are you the copyright holder of this video? Would like to get in contact. Send me a email at: michiel.raijmakers@wbitvp.tv Kind regards Michiel Raijmakers
Spiders can climb on wooden sticks, so they connect the entire structure. Recently, we are using a metal construction, as wood sometimes gets moldy. We now connect metal screws with rubber bands, so spiders can crawl across and connect the first threads. After that it's easy for them.
We tested for consistent individual differences in how aggressive females are towards prey. The goal was to test for "personalities" in this kind of aggressiveness, and whether this affects sexual cannibalism. :)
@@Carniolan Yes, we're a Slovenia based lab, with researchers from ZRC SAZU and NIB. We'll be writing about our findings on sexual cannibalism soonish (and with more videos)...it's a student's MSc thesis. But to answer you question...personalities are tested among individuals of the same population/species, and to be called like that have to be consistent among these individuals. There are several hypotheses about sexual cannibalism, one of which predicts that some females are simply too aggressive and this aggressiveness spill over from the preying into the mating context. We fail to find support for this hypothesis. :)
Typical internet troll. :) This was a side-finding while conducting research of silk biomechanics of this spider species. We simply used spiders from silk experiments for mating, too...and published a funny finding. And besides, no US tax payer money was used as we're not from USA. ;)
+Mariana Trillo , we have collected pubished evidence of mate binding (with references) in a paragraph in the supplementary material of our paper "Spider behaviors include oral sexual encounters" Sci Rep 6: 25128. It is available for download here: www.nature.com/articles/srep25128#supplementary-information
