文档介绍：Zoology 114 (2011) 233–238
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Zoology
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Damping capacity is evolutionarily conserved in the radial silk of
orb-weaving spiders
a b a a,∗
Sean P. Kelly , Andrew Sensenig , Kimberly A. Lorentz , Todd A. Blackledge
a
Department of Biology and Integrated Bioscience Program, University of Akron, Akron, OH 44325-3908, USA
b
Department of Biology, Tabor College, Hillsboro, KS 67063-1799, USA
a r t i c l e i n f o
a b s t r a c t
Article history: Orb-weaving spiders depend upon their two-dimensional silk traps to stop insects in mid flight. While
Received 12 November 2010
the silks used to construct orb webs must be extremely tough to absorb the tremendous ic energy of
Received in revised form 3 February 2011
insect prey, webs must also minimize the return of that energy to prey to prevent insects from bouncing
Accepted 6 February 2011
out of oscillating webs. We therefore predict that the damping capacity of major ampullate spider silk,
which forms the supporting frames and radial threads of orb webs, should be evolutionarily conserved
Keywords:
among orb-weaving spiders. We test this prediction paring silk from six diverse species of orb
Biomaterials
spiders. Silk was taken directly from the radii of orb webs and a Nano Bionix test syste