With climate change .. survival of the most aggressive spiders

Mohamed Ramadan

The consequences of climate change will not stop us being amazed by their disastrous effects on all organisms.A study by a team of scientists at McMaster University in Canada has revealed that extreme climate events can contribute to becoming a more vicious and violent spider.

Extreme climate .. Fierce spiders
A study published in August in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution suggests that the exposure of Anelosimus studiosus spiders to extreme weather events, such as tropical cyclones, is causing them to develop more aggressive than they were before.

The team led by Jonathan Pruitt, an evolutionary biologist at McMaster University, tracked and examined colonies of spiders living on the Atlantic coast - the United States and Mexico - that were hit by tropical cyclones between May and November 2018. To understand the environmental and evolutionary impacts of extreme climate events caused by climate change on living organisms.

Climate change caused by human industrial activity in the last two centuries has caused a number of extreme weather events, such as tropical cyclones, which scientists call the "Black Swan" because of their unprecedented violence and ferocity.

Typically, the colony of Anilosimos Studiosus spiders has two distinct phenotypes of spiders, one meek and the other aggressive. Both types can live side by side with the colony itself. However, if the number of aggressive spiders prevails, the general behavior of the entire colony tends to be ferocious and violent, and vice versa. It is worth noting that this aggressive character can be passed on from parents to children.

Aggressive spiders .. More food
What scientists have observed when comparing 240 colonies of tropical cyclones to those that have not been exposed to these extreme climatic events is that colonies with more aggressive spiders have survived after hurricanes than those with a majority depository.

The reason for this is that aggressive spiders are generally more viable than peaceful depository spiders, as they have better access to food when they are scarce and more tolerant to high temperatures.

"Tropical cyclones affect both, reducing the number of food prey and increasing the colony's exposure to sunlight," explained Pruitt in a press release published by the Canadian University.

Survival of the fiercest
Survival of the fiercest is confirmed by the analysis of the study data when comparing aggressive colonies with depository colonies after exposure to hurricanes, where it was found that the aggressive spider females laid more eggs, and the aggressive small spiders were more viable.

Given the future of Anilosimos Studios, the survival of spiders bearing the aggressive status inherited from survivors of climate change disasters is confirmed by Pruitt. To survive and reproduce. "

In other words, climate change will contribute significantly to changing the characteristics of these spiders to become aggressive and more aggressive and violent across generations, thus continuing the series of negative environmental effects of climate change indefinitely, until humanity wakes up from the overlook and ignore in the face of that threat.