- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Bond wears several hats: he is the Evert and Marion Schlinger Endowed Chair, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology; director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology; associate dean, UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences; and president-elect of the American Arachnological Society.
The Bond lab research paper, involving a new genus of California trapdoor spiders, calls attention to not only the diversity of trapdoor spiders in the state, but a new species they named for national civil rights activist Fred Toyosaburo Korematsu, a San Francisco Bay area native who resisted incarceration in the Japanese-American concentration camps during World War II.
The paper, “Microgeographic Population Structuring in a Genus of California Trapdoor Spiders and Discovery of an Enigmatic New Species (Euctenizidae: Promyrmekiaphila korematsui sp. nov.), appears in the journal Ecology and Evolution. The link: https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.10983.
Co-Authors of Paper. Co-authors of the paper with Bond are James Starrett, project scientist; Xavier Zahnle, who recently received his doctorate; doctoral candidate Emma Jochim and doctoral student Iris Quayle.
Trapdoor spiders are so named because they construct their burrows with a corklike or wafer trap door made of soil, vegetation and silk.
“In this study, we generate sub-genomic scale data to investigate phylogenetic relationships and population structure in Promyrmekiaphila and explore deep phylogenetic breaks hypothesized to occur across the genus,” they wrote. “We employ multiple approaches to test species delimitation hypotheses and test for gene flow to assess reproductive isolation in divergent lineages. We measure an array of female somatic morphological characters to evaluate if species diverge morphologically in potential sympatry, as well as in allopatry with divergent ecological niches. Our goal is to address at what point in the speciation process morphologically conserved taxa can be declared cryptic species rather than simply divergent population groups. We describe a new speciesPromyrmekiaphila korematsuisp. nov. Ultimately, we reject dividing the most geographically widespread species,P. clathrata, into multiple species, and instead interpret genetic breaks as deeply structured populations that are not fully reproductively isolated or may have undergone historical gene flow.”
The paper's abstract:
tr“The recognition and delineation of cryptic species remains a perplexing problem in systematics, evolution, and species delimitation. Once recognized as such, cryptic species complexes provide fertile ground for studying genetic divergence within the context of phenotypic and ecological divergence (or lack thereof). Herein we document the discovery of a new cryptic species of trapdoor spider, Promyrmekiaphila korematsui sp. nov. Using subgenomic data obtained via target enrichment, we document the phylogeography of the California endemic genus Promyrmekiaphila and its constituent species, which also includes P. clathrata and P. winnemem. Based on these data we show a pattern of strong geographic structuring among populations but cannot entirely discount recent gene flow among populations that are parapatric, particularly for deeply diverged lineages within P. clathrata. The genetic data, in addition to revealing a new undescribed species, also allude to a pattern of potential phenotypic differentiation where species likely come into close contact. Alternatively, phenotypic cohesion among genetically divergent P. clathrata lineages suggests that some level of gene flow is ongoing or occurred in the recent past. Despite considerable field collection efforts over many years, additional sampling in potential zones of contact for both species and lineages is needed to completely resolve the dynamics of divergence in Promyrmekiaphila at the population–species interface.”
The research drew funding from a National Science Foundation grant and the Evert and Marion Schlinger Foundation.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Her major professor Jason Bond, then a professor and administrator at Auburn University, Alabama, described and named what is commonly called "The Barack Obama Trapdoor Spider" in 2012.
The article, published in the journal Ecology and Evolution and part of Newton's 2022 doctoral dissertation, is titled "Phylogeography and Cohesion Species Delimitation of California Endemic Trapdoor Spiders within the Aptostichus icenoglei Sibling Species Complex (Araneae: Mygalomorphae: Euctenizidae)."
Co-authors are Professor Bond, who is the Evert and Marion Schlinger Endowed Chair in the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, and associate dean, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences; and Bond lab members, project scientist James Starrett and doctoral candidate Emma Jochim.
"Species delimitation in mygalomorph spiders using only traditional morphological approaches has underestimated species diversity," Newton said, "yet molecular approaches have been shown to overestimate species diversity due to the local population structuring seen as 'species divergence.' Specifically, the Aptostichus icenoglei complex, which comprises the three sibling species, A. barackobamai, A. isabella, and A. icenoglei, exhibits evidence of cryptic mitochondrial DNA diversity throughout their ranges across the California Floristic Province."
The researchers sampled 62 individuals overall for the three species within the complex, using both specimens from Bond (2012) and new records. "A. barackobamai was collected across its geographic range in northern California for a total of 21 samples, and A. icenoglei was collected throughout its range in southern California for a total of 40 samples," they wrote. "Only one specimen of A. isabella was included in this study due to collecting constraints (i.e., only one individual of this species has ever been collected and a burrow has not yet been found containing this species; Bond, (2012)
Next steps? "We hope to use whole genomes for both reconstructing evolutionary relationships as well as identifying genes that contribute to potential adaptive divergence across the landscape," Newton said. "We also hope to gather more natural history data for each of the species, especially A. icenoglei populations, for general ecological information that may aid in species delimitation."
Born and raised in Eupora, Miss., and a first-generation college student in her family, Lacie holds a bachelor of science degree in biological sciences (2016) from Millsaps College, Jackson, Miss. She then enrolled in the graduate school program at Auburn University, studying with Professor Bond. When he accepted the Schlinger Endowed Chair in 2018, Lacie, along with other lab members, transferred to UC Davis. Newton completed her dissertation on species delimitation in two trapdoor spider groups, Antrodiaetus unicolor complex and Aptostichus icenoglei sister species complex, and evaluation of interspecific relationships within the genus Aptostichus.
The research drew support from a National Science Foundation Grant awarded to Bond and Starrett; the McBeth Memorial Scholarship awarded to Newton; and the Evert and Marion Schlinger Foundation.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Newton studies with Professor Jason Bond, associate dean, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, and the Evert and Marion Schlinger Endowed Chair in Insect Systematics, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology.
"Spiders placed in the infraorder Mygalomorphae (tarantulas, trapdoor spiders and their kin) are generally recognized as an ancient cosmopolitan lineage that has persisted for over 250 million years," Newton wrote in her abstract. "Mygalomorph life history traits that include limited dispersal abilities, habitat specialization, and site fidelity altogether make them ideal organisms for studying speciation pattern and process, phylogeography, and adaptation. Evolutionary studies of mygalomorphs at both shallow and deeper phylogenetic levels have been limited prior to the advent of next generation sequencing approaches, with the majority of such studies relying on morphological characters or limited targeted locus approaches for phylogenetic reconstruction. Thus, it is imperative to implement larger genomic-scale datasets for confident reconstruction of relationships."
Her dissertation focuses on species delimitation in two trapdoor spider groups, Antrodiaetus unicolor complex and Aptostichus icenoglei sister species complex, and evaluation of interspecific relationships within the genus Aptostichus. To address species boundaries in the A. unicolor species complex, she implemented genomic-scale data (that it, restriction-site associated DNA sequencing, RADseq) in conjunction with morphological, behavioral, and ecological data to evaluate cohesion species identity (Chapter I).
Similarly, assessing species boundaries in the Aptostichus icenoglei sibling species complex involved a target capture approach for subgenomic data (that is, ultraconserved elements, UCEs) and ecological data to evaluate genetic and ecological exchangeability, as per the cohesion species-based delimitation approach from a previous study (Chapter II).
Newton expects to receive her doctorate by the end of summer and "then I will be heading to the American Museum of Natural History where I will be working in Jessica Ware's lab as a postdoctoral fellow on systematics of broader Odonata as well as Anisoptera (dragonflies)."
First-Generation College Student. Born and raised in Eupora, Miss., Lacie is a first-generation college student. She received her bachelor of science degree in biological sciences from Millsaps College in 2016 and then enrolled in the graduate school program at Auburn University, Alabama, studying with Professor Bond. When he accepted the Schlinger Endowed Chair in Insect Systematics in 2018, Lacie, along with other lab members, transferred to UC Davis.
What sparked her interest in spiders? “I actually used to be terrified of spiders,” Lacie acknowledged. “It wasn't until fall semester of my sophomore year when I took a zoology course that I began to appreciate not only the vast amount of diversity within spiders but also how amazing they are as a group, such as the tensile strength of spider silk being comparable to steel, spider venoms playing a role in potential medical applications, and a myriad of feeding strategies, etc..”
Her research on folding-door spiders or the Antrodiaetus unicolor species complex led to a journal article published in Molecular Ecology: “Integrative Species Delimitation Reveals Cryptic Diversity in the Southern Appalachian Antrodiaetus unicolor (Araneae: Antrodiaetidae) Species Complex.” UC Davis co-authors are Professor Bond, who is the Evert and Marion Schlinger Endowed Chair in Insect Systematics, and project scientist James Starrett of the Bond lab.
Newton is active in both the American Arachnological Society (AAS) and the Society of Systematic Biologists. She won a second-place award for her oral presentation on species delimitation at the 2019 AAS meeting, held at Washington and Lee University, Lexington, Va.
At UC Davis, Newton served as a teaching assistant for the “Introduction to Biology: Biodiversity and the Tree of Life” course. Her resume also includes:
- mentoring undergraduate students in the Mentoring Program, Equity in Science, Technology, Engineering, Math, and Entrepreneurship (ESTEME) organization, a graduate student organization dedicated to improving equity and inclusion in STEM fields, entrepreneurship, and leadership positions.
- volunteering on the admissions committee for GOALS, the Girls' Outdoor Adventure in Leadership and Science, a summer science program for high school students to learn science hands-on while backpacking through the wilderness.
AAS Conference at UC Davis. Newton is looking forward to the AAS conference, set June 26-30, at UC Davis, and will be assisting at the Eight-Legged Encounters open house from 1 to 4 p.m., June 25 at the Bohart Museum of Entomology, located in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building on Crocker Lane. The event will officially kick off the AAS meeting.
A "powerhouse" of arachnologists will be participating, said Bond, who will be hosting the conference with Lisa Chamberland, postdoctoral research associate, Department of Entomology and Nematology, and Joel Ledford, assistant professor of teaching, Department of Plant Biology, College of Biological Sciences.
Professor Eileen Hebets of the School of Biological Sciences, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, is co-hosting the open house as part of a U.S. National Science Foundation grant, “Eight-Legged Encounters” that she developed as an outreach project to connect arachnologists with communities, especially youth.
Some 20 exhibits and activities will be set up in the hallway of the Academic Surge Building, said Tabatha Yang, the Bohart Museum's education and outreach coordinator. “There will be everything--spider specimens, live arachnids, activities, artwork, etc.," Bond related.
Another highlight of the American Arachnological
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Not so taxonomist and arachnologist Rebecca Godwin, who holds a 2020 doctorate in entomology from the University of California, Davis and just published a comprehensive taxonomic revision of the New World members of the trapdoor spider genus, Ummidia.
In a nearly 10-year project that encompassed 800 specimens from 16 natural history museums throughout the world (including the Bohart Museum of Entomology at UC Davis), she updated the descriptions of the 20 known New World spiders, and described 33 new species.
“This study, along with many others conducted utilizing museum collections, is indicative of the importance of natural history collections and their usefulness in discovering unknown biodiversity,” said Godwin, who joined the faculty of Piedmont University, Demorest, Ga., last August as an assistant professor of biology.
Ummidia are medium-sized trapdoor spiders that construct silk-lined burrows, usually with cork-type doors. Their burrows, often covered with leaf litter, are difficult to find.
“The revision was an undertaking,” Godwin said. “I first started working on it almost ten years ago, but it was really only scratching the surface of the stories these spiders have to tell.”
Her major professor, Jason Bond, the Evert and Marion Schlinger Endowed Chair in Insect Systematics, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, co-authored the paper, “Taxonomic Revision of the New World Members of the Trapdoor Spider Genus Ummidia Thorell (Araneae, Mygalomorphae, Halonoproctidae),” published April 2 in ZooKeys.
Importance of Taxonomy
"The Ummidia revision really highlights the importance of taxonomic work and typifies the large number of arthropod species that remain to be described, even in North America,” Bond said. “In many instances, taxonomic work alone stands between a species being lost to both extinction and obscurity, particularly in light of the current human driven wave of mass extinction. As such, one could argue that never before has the discipline been so important; it is impossible to ‘save,' conserve, and/or inventory undiscovered species.”
Godwin's “richly descriptive taxonomic monographs represent important, hypothesis-driven science,” Bond said. “Rebecca started her work with a collection of specimens and then postulated tests of what constituted the limits of a species; where in the hierarchy of life that species is placed; and what homologous characters support her hypotheses."
At the onset of the UC Davis research, the number of described species in the genus, plus one subspecies, totaled 27. Of that initial number, 20 were considered New World species or in the Western hemisphere (the Americas.) The distribution ranged from North America and South America to Asia, Northern Africa and Europe.
“I am continually blown away by how little we know about what is out there living on this planet with us,” Godwin commented. “I think that anytime we can learn more about the organisms we share this planet with, it's a valuable endeavor. Most people don't even realize they are sharing their space with these spiders, literally right under their feet—not to mention the fact that these spiders tend to have very limited ranges and have very low dispersal. They can be winked out of existence without our ever knowing they were here, and I find that kind of heartbreaking.”
“Additionally, I think Ummidia is a fascinating group for evolutionary and population dynamic studies,” Godwin said. “Within a single genus there are the ‘traditional' extremely non-vagile species sympatric with species that appear to have mastered ballooning, potentially giving them much greater dispersal capabilities.”
Godwin said that “there are incredibly small species living alongside relatively quite large species. Is this dwarfism? Paedomorphism? Are there potentially sneaker males at work? We know so little about the actual life history and behavior of these spiders and how it might be varying from species to species.”
Five Countries
The authors examined trapdoor specimens from natural history museums in five countries—United States, Mexico, Italy, England, Germany and Colombia. Within the United States, they researched collections from 10 states: New York, California, Ohio, Colorado, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Texas, Oklahoma, Florida and Virginia.
“Ummidia is a wide-ranging genus, found in the southwestern Mediterranean, Central Asia, and in the Americas from as far north as Ohio and Maryland west to Arizona and south to Brazil, including the Greater and Lesser Antilles,” they wrote.
Ballooning, a behavior that distinguishes some Ummidia, “facilitates the dispersal of individuals over geographic features that would otherwise serve as barriers to gene flow,” they noted.
“Although species of Ummidia are very widespread and occur in a number of habitats, they tend to be very patchy in their distribution,” they wrote. “This, paired with the highly cryptic nature of their burrows, make them very difficult to collect, and so by necessity this revision is based almost entirely on historic rather than newly collected material. Much of this material was amassed from a number of collectors and institutions by the late Dr. Willis Gertsch, who spent over 40 years working on a revision of the group. Gertsch never published his work on Ummidia prior to his passing in 1999, but his notes and correspondence, stored in the archives of the American Museum of Natural History proved useful and insightful in the completion of this work.”
Godwin, citing the difficulty of revising the morphologically homogenous group, quoted Gertsch in one of his writings: “This is the most difficult ctenizid genus I know with such feeble, variable, erratic, aberrant characters that I find myself uncertain as to...what is a species.”
Research Funding
The Evert and Marion Schlinger Endowment primarily funded the trapdoor spider research. Godwin also received a $2000 Auburn University Museum of Natural History Collection Improvement Grant in 2015; and a $500 Auburn University Graduate School Research Fellowship in 2015-2016.
Godwin's research on trap spiders won high honors in graduate student competitions at the 2019 American Arachnological Society (AAS) meeting, held in Lexington, Va., and the 2018 Entomological Society of America (ESA) meeting, held in Vancouver, BC. She won first place in the AAS student poster competition, and second in the ESA President's Prize graduate student competition.
Godwin holds two degrees from Auburn University: a bachelor's degree in zoology (2004) and her master's degree in wetland biology (2011). She began her doctoral studies at Auburn University in 2014, and transferred to UC Davis in 2018 when Bond, her major professor, accepted his UC Davis position.
At Piedmont University, Godwin teaches a number of biology classes, including introductory biology and invertebrate zoology. Her main research interests include the phylogenetics, taxonomy, and systematics of trapdoor spiders.
She is also keenly interested in science communication. “I have a true passion for effectively communicating science both with students in the classroom as well as with the public,” she said. “I believe that effective science communication at all levels and societal science literacy are crucial to create an informed society.”
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
He received more than 200 suggestions.
Bond, a noted spider authority and the Evert and Marion Schlinger Endowed Chair in Insect Systematics, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, accepted suggestions from mid-May until 5 p.m., June 1.
His colleague, Joel Ledford, assistant professor of teaching, UC Davis Department of Plant Biology--his research interests include spider systematics and biology education--interviewed Bond May 18 for his Tree of Life-UC Davis YouTube channel. See the episode online.
Bond discovered the new genus of trapdoor spiders on a sandy beach at Moss Landing State Park, Monterey County. Bond proposes to name the genus, Cryptocteniza, part of which means “hidden or secret.”
"There were a few distinct categories of name suggestions," said Bond, who received most through his email but some posted on the YouTube Channel. The categories:
- Native American groups and Native American terms
- Moss Landing derivative names – nouns in apposition associated with the type locality
- Names for celebrities or film characters – a modicum of Harry Potter suggestions as well
- Folks wanting me to name the spider after myself or some other association with the Bond name, related to No. 3
- Most recently names related to George Floyd or other associations with the Black Lives Matter movement.
A virtual open house on spiders, hosted by the Bohart Museum of Entomology, UC Davis, will be broadcast on FacebookLive sometime soon, said Tabatha Yang, education and outreach coordinator. It was initially scheduled for June 8 but postponed.
When it is rescheduled, Bond will discuss spiders, field questions about spiders, and list the top suggestions--perhaps several--for the species. When the final decision is made, the person who named it will be included in Bond's upcoming manuscript on the new genus. Ledford is a co-author.
Trapdoor spiders are so named because they construct their burrows with a corklike or wafer trap door made of soil, vegetation and silk.
Bond discovered the female spider in 1997 on the sandy beach, and figured at the time it might be a new genus. But despite repeated trips to the site, he could not find a male for 22 years. The male proved elusive until pitfall trap sampling in the fall of 2019.
“I have only one male specimen,” Bond told Ledford. He said he will be “relieved” when it is described and finds a home in the Bohart Museum of Entomology, located in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building on Crocker Lane. (It is temporarily closed due the coronavirus pandemic precautions.)
“This genus meets the criteria of an endangered living fossil,” Bond said, “and is consequently of grave conservation concern.” He believes the genus is found only in that area, but thinks it may be closely related to a genus found in New Mexico and Arizona. “It is quite plausible that this genus was once likely far more widespread across California and the American Southwest, with potentially greater past species diversity throughout its larger hypothetical ancestral range,” he said.
Of the genus name, Cryptocteniza, Bond says that the adjective “hidden or secret” is prefixed to Cteniza, the Greek feminine noun “comb.” The latter refers to the comb-like rastellum (row of stiff spines on the chelicera) common in taxa and formerly assigned to the spider family Ctenizidae (e.g., Eucteniza). The prefix refers to both the diminutive form of the rastellum and the seemingly “hidden in plain sight” nature of the genus, he says.
It is rare to find a genus in the field, the professor said. The usual place is in museum collections.
The trapdoor spider family Euctenizidae is comprised of some 76 described species in seven genera widely distributed throughout the United States, although a few species are known from Mexico.
Some of the suggestions posted on YouTube:
- Cryptocteniza 007 since it is hidden in plain sight and your name is Bond.
- Cryptoctenzia quartertine: a combination of “quarter” and “quarantine,” since it took you a quarter of a century to find a male specimen, and because of our current Covid experience!
- Cryptoceniza nutella (for the rich dark brown color)
- Cryptocteniza steinbeckii (for one of Monterey County's most famous residents, though apparently John Steinbeck already has a fish named after him)
- Cryptoceniza pairspinster (paired spinster since the male was found after so many years)
- Cryptoceniza Spidey McSpiderface