Spiders Who Eat Together, Stay Together — And Form Enormous Colony Sizes

The ability to work together and capture larger prey has allowed social spiders to stretch the laws of nature and reach enormous colony sizes, UBC zoologists have found.

The findings, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, may also explain why social spiders thrive in tropical areas but dwindle with increasing latitude and elevation.

“The size of organisms tends to be constrained by a scaling principle scientists call ‘surface to volume ratio,’” says Leticia Avilés, lead author and associate professor in the UBC Dept. of Zoology. While organisms typically have energetic needs proportional to their volume, they must acquire nutrients through their surface. 

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Tagged as: Arachnids, Colonies, Leticia Aviles, Nature, Organisms, Prey, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, Social Spiders, Spiders, Zoologists, Zoology

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