- 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
Jason Bond, professor and the Schlinger Chair in Insect Systematics, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, has received a 4-year, $1.4 million National Science Foundation grant to study trapdoor spiders in the California Floristic Province.
“The idea is to look at the genomic diversity of trapdoor spider populations across the California landscape and identify new species and hotspots of diversity,” said Bond, principal investigator of the collaborative award, shared with Marshal Hedin, professor of biology at San Diego State University (SDSU).
“From a research perspective, this is pretty exciting but it also includes a really nice educational component working with Fran Keller at Folsom Lake College (a UC Davis alumnus),” Bond said. “We have REU (Research Experiences for Undergraduates) funding for students who will be transferring to UC Davis.”
Also working on the grant is co-PI James Starrett, project scientist in the Bond lab.
Trapdoor spiders construct their burrows with a corklike or wafer trap door made of soil, vegetation and silk. They belong to a number of related families placed in the order Araneae, including Euctenizidae and Halonoproctidae.
The researchers also will be using “crowdsourced” data from iNaturalist, involving public sightings of spiders.
The California Floristic Province is a floristic province with a Mediterranean-type climate on the Pacific Coast. In addition to its remarkable spider diversity, this biodiversity hotspot is known for its giant sequoias and coastal redwoods.
“One of the first products from the project will be the description of a new trapdoor spider genus and species from Moss Landing State Beach,” Bond said. Plans call for the public to suggest candidate names for the new species, with the Bohart Museum of Entomology selecting the winner.
The grant is titled “Collaborative Research: Phylogenomics, Spatial Phylogenetics and Conservation Prioritization in Trapdoor Spiders (and Kin) of the California Floristic Province.”
The abstract: “Using a combination of original fieldwork, newly developed analytical methods for genetically identifying species and their evolutionary and geographic relationships, this research project will focus on trapdoor spiders and their relatives as an exemplary group for biodiversity knowledge and conservation in the California Floristic Province (CA-FP). Long-term surveys will be conducted at multiple geographic locations that include most major CA-FP habitat types. At these sites, the presence of spider species and the numbers of individuals in each will be measured to provide a statistical baseline for future monitoring efforts. New large DNA datasets, based on analysis of thousands of genes, will be generated by analysis of the genomes of these species.”
“New methods will be applied to this data to identify species boundaries, and formal taxonomic descriptions will be made for all new species,” according to the abstract. “The new information about these new species and their genetic relationships will be used to assess patterns of biodiversity in this spider group across the complex geography of the CA-FP. Statistical comparisons of the geographic patterns of spider species distribution will be made to CA-FP plants and vertebrates, and these results will be used to determine whether biodiversity hotspots coincide with federal, state, and locally protected areas.”
“This project will train students and other researchers in several techniques of field biology research, producing and analyzing new data from genomes, using cutting edge methods. This research will encourage participation and train a select group of community college students from underrepresented groups who plan to transfer to Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) programs in four-year colleges.”
Bond and colleagues recently published research in the journal Systematic Biology that recognizes eight new spider families—five elevations in rank and three brand new family level rank names, along with one new subfamily. This is in addition to other new families that Bond and Hedin proposed last year. Postdoctoral researcher Vera Opatova of the Bond lab (she recently left for a position in Prague), is the first author on the Systematic Biology paper, "Phylogenetic Systematics and Evolution of the Spider Infraorder Mygalomorphae Using Genomic Scale Data," and Bond is the senior author.
Hedin is the principal investigator of a continuing grant, “Collaborative Research: Phylogenomics, Spatial Phylogenetics and Conservation Prioritization in Trapdoor Spiders (and Kin) of the California Floristic Province,” with co-principal investigator and Jeet Sukemaran, SDSU assistant professor who specializes in computational evolutionary biology.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Rebecca Godwin won first in the poster competition for her research on trapdoor spiders and Lacie Newton won second for her oral presentation on species delimitation. Their major professor, Jason Bond, is the department's Evert and Marion Schlinger Endowed Chair in Insect Systematics.
Godwin titled her work, “Revision of New World Ummidia (Mygalomorphae, Halonoproctidae)”: Her abstract: “Ummidia is a historically taxonomically difficult group of spiders belonging to the infraorder Mygalomorphae, one of the three main lineages recognized within spiders. Mygalomorph life history and their incredibly cryptic appearance make them difficult to identify, as a result they are frequently overlooked by spider systematists. Ummidia Thorell 1875 is a wide-ranging genus of trapdoor spider found both in the Mediterranean region of the Old World and in the New World from the eastern United States south to Brazil. Taxonomic work on New World Ummidia is sparse outside of original descriptions, the most recent of which are over half a century old."
"I am revising the genus Ummidia in the Nearctic region. I have approached this taxonomic problem by examining approximately 700 specimens of Ummidia from various collections (American Museum of Natural History, Museum of Comparative Zoology, Florida State Collection of Arthropods, California Academy of Sciences, and Auburn University Museum of Natural History). Examination of museum material has seemingly confirmed the undescribed diversity of Ummidia; preliminary estimates of New World species ranging between 50 and 60, with particularly high amounts of diversity in the Florida and Virginia. 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.”
"Previous research by Hendrixson and Bond (2005) described a new sympatric species Antrodiaetus microunicolor in the A. unicolor species complex using morphological criteria (i.e. size and setal character differences) and behavioral criteria (non-overlapping mating seasons). Subsequently, they used two molecular markers COI and 28S and discovered that A. unicolor is paraphyletic with respect to A. microunicolor. To further delineate this species complex, we implement the cohesion species concept and employ multiple lines of evidence for testing genetic exchangeability and ecological interchangeability. Our integrative approach includes extensively sampling homologous loci across the genome using a version of RADseq called 3RAD, assessing population structure across their geographic range, and evaluating ecological similarity by niche-based distribution modeling. Based on our analyses, we conclude that this species complex has two or three species in addition to A. microunicolor.”
Rebecca Godwin
Godwin holds two degrees from Auburn University: her bachelor's degree in zoology in 2004, and her master's degree in wetland biology in 2011. She began her doctoral studies at Auburn University in 2014, and transferred to UC Davis when Bond accepted the UC Davis position in 2018.
Godwin's research interests include taxonomy, systematics, and phylogreography of trapdoor spiders, as well as effective science communication and increasing general science literacy.
Lacie Newton
Newton received her bachelor of science degree from Millsaps College, Jackson, Miss., in 2016, and then joined the Auburn University doctoral program. Like Godwin, she transferred to UC Davis with her major professor in 2018. Newton served as an undergraduate teaching assistant at Millsaps College for “Introduction to Cell Biology” and “General Zoology,” and as a graduate teaching assistant in “Introduction to Biology” at Auburn University.
Newton now serves as a graduate teaching assistant at UC Davis for “Introduction to Biology: Biodiversity and the Tree of Life.” She won the 2019-2020 George H. Vansell Scholarship, UC Davis. Her research interests include systematics, species delimitation, and phylogeography of spiders; phylogenetics; comparative transcriptomics of troglophilic and troglobitic spiders; cave biology and conservation.
Both Godwin and Newton volunteer at the Bohart Museum of Entomology's programs on spiders and at the campuswide UC Davis Biodiversity Museum Day.
Bond joined the UC Davis faculty after a seven-year academic career at Auburn University, Ala. He served as professor of biology and chair of the Department of Biological Sciences from January 2016 to July 2018, and as curator of arachnids and myriapods (centipedes, millipedes, and related animals) at the Auburn University Museum of Natural History, from August 2011 to July 2018.