WEBVTT 00:00:11.020 --> 00:00:16.899 Lost in the fog of a cosmic storm Floating on 00:00:16.899 --> 00:00:21.140 whimsical wavelengths is the norm Dancing through 00:00:21.140 --> 00:00:30.789 the stars, chasing spectrums of light Welcome 00:00:30.789 --> 00:00:33.530 back for your listening pleasure to Whimsical 00:00:33.530 --> 00:00:35.829 Wavelengths, a science podcast. Now, I've got 00:00:35.829 --> 00:00:37.729 some really big news. If you're a listener and 00:00:37.729 --> 00:00:40.270 not connected to the show via social media in 00:00:40.270 --> 00:00:43.609 any which way, you wouldn't know. Whimsical Wavelengths 00:00:43.609 --> 00:00:45.810 was chosen by the American Writers Awards as 00:00:45.810 --> 00:00:49.649 2026 podcast of the year in the science category. 00:00:50.270 --> 00:00:52.250 Data still out what that means for the podcast, 00:00:52.570 --> 00:00:55.219 but it is a milestone. The evolution from the 00:00:55.219 --> 00:00:58.439 first episode till now, and you know what? It's 00:00:58.439 --> 00:01:00.439 just getting started. This episode continues 00:01:00.439 --> 00:01:02.780 that evolution as it's about a new paper with 00:01:02.780 --> 00:01:05.299 a new guest. But before we get into that, a quick 00:01:05.299 --> 00:01:08.659 content warning for this episode. We'll be discussing 00:01:08.659 --> 00:01:12.540 eight -legged creatures, spiders, specifically 00:01:12.540 --> 00:01:15.780 black widows. So if you suffer from a truly severe 00:01:15.780 --> 00:01:19.620 case of arachnophobia, this episode might not 00:01:19.620 --> 00:01:23.700 be your cup of tea. Everyone else? Congratulations, 00:01:24.019 --> 00:01:26.799 you're about to learn something that will almost 00:01:26.799 --> 00:01:29.700 certainly make spiders more interesting. Although 00:01:29.700 --> 00:01:32.859 not necessarily less unsettling. Because today 00:01:32.859 --> 00:01:34.480 we're talking about attraction, communication, 00:01:34.700 --> 00:01:38.099 and how even when you don't have a voice, wings, 00:01:38.260 --> 00:01:40.920 or particularly good eyesight, you can still 00:01:40.920 --> 00:01:43.159 manage to send a very clear message that says, 00:01:43.280 --> 00:01:46.879 hey, over here. Black widows are famous for a 00:01:46.879 --> 00:01:48.560 lot of things. Their appearance, their reputation, 00:01:48.920 --> 00:01:52.000 their name. But what they don't get enough credit 00:01:52.000 --> 00:01:56.019 for... It is their chemistry. These animals live 00:01:56.019 --> 00:01:59.299 in a world where sound doesn't carry very far. 00:01:59.640 --> 00:02:03.480 Vision is limited. And wandering around blindly 00:02:03.480 --> 00:02:07.079 is a great way to become lunch for something 00:02:07.079 --> 00:02:12.240 else. And yet, somehow, males still manage to 00:02:12.240 --> 00:02:15.719 find females. Which raises a pretty obvious question. 00:02:16.120 --> 00:02:21.719 How? That's right. this is a themed episode or 00:02:21.719 --> 00:02:24.419 at least it was going to be in an ideal world 00:02:24.419 --> 00:02:26.180 this would have been just in time for valentine's 00:02:26.180 --> 00:02:29.039 day that's the way i planned it when i started 00:02:29.039 --> 00:02:32.840 writing it a long long time ago but whether the 00:02:32.840 --> 00:02:35.780 calendar cooperates or not the sentiment still 00:02:35.780 --> 00:02:38.819 works because this episode is all about chemical 00:02:38.819 --> 00:02:42.020 love letters seasonal timing and how attraction 00:02:42.020 --> 00:02:44.919 in the natural world is often far more subtle 00:02:44.919 --> 00:02:48.259 and far more sophisticated than we give it credit 00:02:48.259 --> 00:02:51.560 for The paper we're using as our guide looks 00:02:51.560 --> 00:02:55.300 at Western black widow spiders, Lactrodectus 00:02:55.300 --> 00:02:59.599 hesperus, and asks a deceptively simple question. 00:03:00.120 --> 00:03:03.240 What exactly are females putting into their webs 00:03:03.240 --> 00:03:07.340 that attract males? And does that signal change 00:03:07.340 --> 00:03:12.000 with the seasons as time moves on? Minor spoiler. 00:03:12.539 --> 00:03:15.599 They do. So today, to unpack how spiders flirt 00:03:15.599 --> 00:03:18.039 without ever meeting, how chemistry carries information 00:03:18.039 --> 00:03:22.159 across space, and why Valentine's Day shouldn't 00:03:22.159 --> 00:03:24.759 really belong to humans anyway. Because if you 00:03:24.759 --> 00:03:27.219 think dating is complicated now, imagine doing 00:03:27.219 --> 00:03:30.599 it with eight legs and a web. full of pheromones. 00:03:30.699 --> 00:03:33.719 To help us untangle the scientific web, let's 00:03:33.719 --> 00:03:35.599 welcome our guest who did his PhD at the same 00:03:35.599 --> 00:03:37.879 university I did, Simon Fraser University in 00:03:37.879 --> 00:03:40.860 the Department of Biological Sciences. Now he's 00:03:40.860 --> 00:03:44.520 the assistant professor at Animal Metabolics 00:03:44.520 --> 00:03:47.680 at Ecology Lab at Griswold University. Please 00:03:47.680 --> 00:03:50.139 welcome Andy Fisher. Thank you for having me. 00:03:50.460 --> 00:03:53.979 I'm so glad you're here. When this came up because 00:03:53.979 --> 00:03:56.500 my neighbor, he suggested having you on the show, 00:03:56.539 --> 00:03:59.939 I was like, that's really cool. And the podcast 00:03:59.939 --> 00:04:02.539 is a great place to do this. And I think everyone 00:04:02.539 --> 00:04:05.159 in research has a story that brought them to 00:04:05.159 --> 00:04:07.520 study something different and why they chose 00:04:07.520 --> 00:04:09.759 those subjects. So how did you come to study 00:04:09.759 --> 00:04:12.520 the chemical language of spiders? Because this 00:04:12.520 --> 00:04:15.740 one isn't as obvious as looking up into the sky 00:04:15.740 --> 00:04:18.300 and seeing the cosmos or some kind of visible 00:04:18.300 --> 00:04:21.730 phenomenon. yeah well i was studying chemistry 00:04:21.730 --> 00:04:25.310 and biology a long time ago in germany as a double 00:04:25.310 --> 00:04:29.310 major and during during my first year at university 00:04:29.310 --> 00:04:33.509 in biology class it became apparent that we we 00:04:33.509 --> 00:04:36.509 know very very very little about spiders they 00:04:36.509 --> 00:04:39.449 are very feared everyone has an opinion about 00:04:39.449 --> 00:04:42.449 them but we actually scientifically know incredibly 00:04:42.449 --> 00:04:45.949 little about them and later on when i had to 00:04:45.949 --> 00:04:49.350 choose my research subject i wanted to combine 00:04:49.350 --> 00:04:52.689 my chemistry background with my personal interest 00:04:52.689 --> 00:04:55.709 with in this very dark taxa so we didn't know 00:04:55.709 --> 00:04:58.649 much about them so i wanted to see what chemical 00:04:58.649 --> 00:05:02.189 spiders use and and spiders use a lot of chemicals 00:05:02.189 --> 00:05:05.230 when because most spiders are virtually blind 00:05:05.230 --> 00:05:08.490 and they can feel very well vibrations on the 00:05:08.490 --> 00:05:10.769 ground but when you want to communicate with 00:05:10.769 --> 00:05:14.480 anything that is further away than a meter They 00:05:14.480 --> 00:05:18.370 actually use their sense of smell. And even upon 00:05:18.370 --> 00:05:20.910 contact, they use their sense of taste. And that's 00:05:20.910 --> 00:05:23.970 their main communication language. So when you 00:05:23.970 --> 00:05:26.589 think how a male finds a female, well, they smell 00:05:26.589 --> 00:05:31.209 them. And it became, at the time, a hobby and 00:05:31.209 --> 00:05:34.470 then a profession to identify the chemicals involved 00:05:34.470 --> 00:05:36.529 in this communication. So I moved then to Vancouver, 00:05:36.709 --> 00:05:40.329 to Burnaby specifically, and studied at Simon 00:05:40.329 --> 00:05:43.170 Fraser, did my PhD there, how spiders chemically 00:05:43.170 --> 00:05:49.060 communicate. And yeah, that became my job. That's 00:05:49.060 --> 00:05:50.740 awesome. This is almost like asking the same 00:05:50.740 --> 00:05:52.860 question twice, but I think it's still useful 00:05:52.860 --> 00:05:55.319 to reframe it. So before moving towards the paper, 00:05:55.779 --> 00:05:59.560 you're already talking about how creatures communicate. 00:05:59.699 --> 00:06:01.420 You said the spiders were essentially blind, 00:06:01.620 --> 00:06:03.839 but I think spiders have many eyes, don't they? 00:06:04.240 --> 00:06:08.180 Yes, so most spiders have eight eyes, but the 00:06:08.180 --> 00:06:11.019 very most spiders... They don't really use them. 00:06:11.060 --> 00:06:13.639 They can see a shadow coming, or if it's day 00:06:13.639 --> 00:06:18.360 or dark, is it night, or is it a dark corner 00:06:18.360 --> 00:06:20.660 where I'm more comfortable or not? So that's 00:06:20.660 --> 00:06:22.000 what they use their eyes for. There are very 00:06:22.000 --> 00:06:24.399 few spiders, like jumping spiders, wolf spiders, 00:06:24.879 --> 00:06:27.560 ogre -faced spiders, that use their eyes for 00:06:27.560 --> 00:06:31.639 hunting. But all other spiders, yeah, not really. 00:06:32.319 --> 00:06:34.500 What is that? Sorry, this is a complete aside. 00:06:34.579 --> 00:06:37.540 We're already going on a deviation. But how did 00:06:37.540 --> 00:06:40.560 they, like... With eight eyes, is there something 00:06:40.560 --> 00:06:43.579 that's happened evolutionary that have changed 00:06:43.579 --> 00:06:47.199 that system? Like they have so many of them, 00:06:47.259 --> 00:06:50.019 yet they don't really use them. Well, they use 00:06:50.019 --> 00:06:52.519 them. They use them just not for the same things 00:06:52.519 --> 00:06:55.600 we use our eyes for. So we are very visual animals. 00:06:56.019 --> 00:07:00.060 And we communicate very unaware with our sense 00:07:00.060 --> 00:07:02.800 of smell and taste. We can talk about that a 00:07:02.800 --> 00:07:07.100 little bit later. But for spiders, they... they 00:07:07.100 --> 00:07:09.800 have their eyes very strategically positioned 00:07:09.800 --> 00:07:14.420 across their head. So they can see if a motion 00:07:14.420 --> 00:07:18.339 comes from behind or if something is in front 00:07:18.339 --> 00:07:23.519 of them. They have 360 vision, almost 360 vision 00:07:23.519 --> 00:07:28.360 on a cylindrical sphere. And they use their eyes 00:07:28.360 --> 00:07:31.040 just for the same things we use ours for. So, 00:07:31.040 --> 00:07:34.839 yeah. Okay, so you and I right now are using 00:07:34.839 --> 00:07:38.339 sound to communicate. Then obviously humans use 00:07:38.339 --> 00:07:41.879 visual cues, whether you're in traffic and getting 00:07:41.879 --> 00:07:44.759 angry. And then there's also smell. Are there 00:07:44.759 --> 00:07:47.199 any other ways to communicate? I mean, you mentioned 00:07:47.199 --> 00:07:52.399 taste. Yeah, so the sense of smell and taste 00:07:52.399 --> 00:07:56.639 we combine as chemical communication. So smelling 00:07:56.639 --> 00:07:59.759 is basically the same thing as tasting, except... 00:07:59.930 --> 00:08:02.850 that the chemicals we detect are in the air, 00:08:02.990 --> 00:08:06.129 whereas upon taste, we have to have surface contact. 00:08:06.430 --> 00:08:08.689 But other than that, it's basically the same 00:08:08.689 --> 00:08:11.870 thing. It's chemical communication. Our tongue 00:08:11.870 --> 00:08:14.290 can taste all kinds of chemicals, whereas our 00:08:14.290 --> 00:08:18.009 nose can smell all kinds of other chemicals. 00:08:18.230 --> 00:08:21.910 Other animals, they use a lot of vibration. So 00:08:21.910 --> 00:08:24.730 vibration is the same thing with sound or substrate 00:08:24.730 --> 00:08:27.990 -borne vibration. Sound is nothing else but airborne 00:08:27.990 --> 00:08:32.559 vibration where... the air moves and this is 00:08:32.559 --> 00:08:35.940 a vibration that we can hear. The same thing 00:08:35.940 --> 00:08:38.580 happens with vibration on a table or sometimes 00:08:38.580 --> 00:08:41.539 when you feel a seismic vibration, worst case 00:08:41.539 --> 00:08:44.620 is an earthquake, where you see literally the 00:08:44.620 --> 00:08:48.559 earth shake. Many animals are very attuned to 00:08:48.559 --> 00:08:53.120 these seismic, sort of substrate -borne, tremulative 00:08:53.120 --> 00:08:57.879 communications. Other than vibrations, electric 00:08:57.879 --> 00:09:01.120 communication, that is an emerging field. So 00:09:01.120 --> 00:09:03.399 when we think of electric fish, these are very 00:09:03.399 --> 00:09:06.120 exclusive taxes. But over the last 10 years, 00:09:06.159 --> 00:09:09.480 we started to realize that a lot of animals communicate 00:09:09.480 --> 00:09:13.740 with electrostatic signals. So they obtain an 00:09:13.740 --> 00:09:16.620 electrostatic charge as they move. through air 00:09:16.620 --> 00:09:19.539 like a bumblebee for example and when they then 00:09:19.539 --> 00:09:21.700 land on a flower they discharge locally on the 00:09:21.700 --> 00:09:24.039 flower that changes the electrostatic profile 00:09:24.039 --> 00:09:25.840 of the flower and another bumblebee can detect 00:09:25.840 --> 00:09:29.019 based on the charge if the flower has been visited 00:09:29.019 --> 00:09:32.159 recently by a bumblebee or not any other flying 00:09:32.159 --> 00:09:37.139 insect the same any flying predator moves through 00:09:37.139 --> 00:09:40.919 the as an insulated body through the air and 00:09:40.919 --> 00:09:46.700 thus gets a charge over time And many prey animals, 00:09:46.919 --> 00:09:50.220 for example, a caterpillar, can sense the electrostatic 00:09:50.220 --> 00:09:53.539 field of a, for example, wasp as it approaches 00:09:53.539 --> 00:09:57.919 and then respond with an anti -predator behavior. 00:09:58.840 --> 00:10:02.559 Wow. Yeah, yeah. So there's lots of emerging 00:10:02.559 --> 00:10:05.000 stuff happening on the communication front, but 00:10:05.000 --> 00:10:07.340 the traditional and better studies is visual 00:10:07.340 --> 00:10:13.730 and acoustic communication. well known and used 00:10:13.730 --> 00:10:17.549 by the very most different types of animals is 00:10:17.549 --> 00:10:20.149 chemical communication, both sense and taste, 00:10:20.269 --> 00:10:23.250 and sense of smell and taste. Now I have another 00:10:23.250 --> 00:10:25.370 deviating question before I get back on track. 00:10:26.769 --> 00:10:29.909 I didn't know we were going to go into electromagnetism 00:10:29.909 --> 00:10:34.450 here, essentially. So we can talk about, and 00:10:34.450 --> 00:10:36.529 keep in mind this is not my wheelhouse, so I'm 00:10:36.529 --> 00:10:39.220 really stretching my abilities here. Kind of 00:10:39.220 --> 00:10:42.700 the evolution of communication was basically, 00:10:42.740 --> 00:10:46.000 I guess, chemical and sound first, kind of the 00:10:46.000 --> 00:10:49.200 first two, because things didn't have eyes, right? 00:10:49.320 --> 00:10:51.480 You had to have some way of communicating between 00:10:51.480 --> 00:10:57.360 bacteria, I would imagine. So where would electromagnetism 00:10:57.360 --> 00:11:00.740 come into that, like the electrostatic? So we 00:11:00.740 --> 00:11:03.519 don't really know when the different... modalities 00:11:03.519 --> 00:11:07.500 so types of communications came about and we 00:11:07.500 --> 00:11:11.299 know from different animals and when you compare 00:11:11.299 --> 00:11:13.860 our sense of smell and taste which seems to be 00:11:13.860 --> 00:11:17.580 the oldest the way we detect things is very different 00:11:17.580 --> 00:11:19.940 from an insect which has antennae with which 00:11:19.940 --> 00:11:23.059 they smell and taste which is again very different 00:11:23.059 --> 00:11:27.019 to spiders they smell and taste with hairs on 00:11:27.019 --> 00:11:31.480 their legs so it's very diverse we assume that 00:11:32.120 --> 00:11:34.279 uh when you think of the most primitive life 00:11:34.279 --> 00:11:37.679 form single cell organisms they can they can 00:11:37.679 --> 00:11:41.840 sense chemical gradients in the medium they originate, 00:11:41.899 --> 00:11:44.000 and then they can move towards or away from it, 00:11:44.039 --> 00:11:46.879 which we call chemotaxis, which is based on a 00:11:46.879 --> 00:11:51.139 sense of ability to taste or smell these chemicals. 00:11:51.639 --> 00:11:55.840 Now, sound has very little effect on these water 00:11:55.840 --> 00:11:58.960 -borne media. We don't really know, so light 00:11:58.960 --> 00:12:02.500 seems to be a very important communication modality 00:12:02.500 --> 00:12:05.340 to detect from the environment, to sense the 00:12:05.340 --> 00:12:10.250 day or night, etc. But we don't really know how 00:12:10.250 --> 00:12:14.570 these things evolved on this macroevolutionary 00:12:14.570 --> 00:12:16.570 scale. All right, so now I've got to ask you 00:12:16.570 --> 00:12:19.409 a famous question, a why question. And you've 00:12:19.409 --> 00:12:21.649 already sold me. I think this is absolutely fascinating. 00:12:21.750 --> 00:12:24.009 We should absolutely study the heck out of this. 00:12:24.129 --> 00:12:26.289 But to someone who doesn't know a whole lot about 00:12:26.289 --> 00:12:29.009 science, why study the chemical communication 00:12:29.009 --> 00:12:32.570 or the pheromones or the language of love of 00:12:32.570 --> 00:12:35.309 spiders and insects in general? Most chemical 00:12:35.309 --> 00:12:37.809 communication is studied in insects, and most 00:12:37.809 --> 00:12:39.710 of them because there are a lot of problematic 00:12:39.710 --> 00:12:44.330 insects. When you think of a moth that lays eggs 00:12:44.330 --> 00:12:46.710 and then the caterpillars eat all your apples 00:12:46.710 --> 00:12:50.970 in your apple orchard, for example, if you identify 00:12:50.970 --> 00:12:53.029 the pheromones, which are the chemicals used 00:12:53.029 --> 00:12:56.309 for the female to attract the male, if you flood 00:12:56.309 --> 00:12:59.419 that orchard with female pheromone, the male 00:12:59.419 --> 00:13:01.700 cannot find the female anymore the female remains 00:13:01.700 --> 00:13:04.220 unmated she cannot lay eggs your apples don't 00:13:04.220 --> 00:13:06.220 get eaten you don't even have to spray pesticides 00:13:06.220 --> 00:13:09.340 or you reverse the whole thing around you have 00:13:09.340 --> 00:13:12.220 a trap where you lace it with pheromone and all 00:13:12.220 --> 00:13:15.120 the males get sucked into that trap like being 00:13:15.120 --> 00:13:17.059 attracted to the trap and then essentially being 00:13:17.059 --> 00:13:20.720 removed from the micro habitat and hence your 00:13:20.720 --> 00:13:23.639 females remain unmated and so you have a very 00:13:23.639 --> 00:13:27.620 efficient way of controlling past organisms with 00:13:28.220 --> 00:13:31.639 The pheromones. And a similar idea brought me 00:13:31.639 --> 00:13:34.840 then also to Vancouver back in the day. I wanted 00:13:34.840 --> 00:13:37.679 to find something that deters spiders. So a pest 00:13:37.679 --> 00:13:42.159 management strategy, which Vancouver, Simon Fraser 00:13:42.159 --> 00:13:45.919 University specifically, is most famous for their 00:13:45.919 --> 00:13:50.299 former Center for Pest Management. And they had 00:13:50.299 --> 00:13:53.500 a Master of Pest Management program, which is 00:13:53.500 --> 00:13:57.480 super invaluable in training these these novel 00:13:57.480 --> 00:13:59.559 ways of thinking how to control pests without 00:13:59.559 --> 00:14:02.899 pesticides. And chemical communication is one 00:14:02.899 --> 00:14:07.600 of the most effectively used ways of controlling 00:14:07.600 --> 00:14:10.080 pests. Okay, well that seems like the perfect 00:14:10.080 --> 00:14:12.399 segue to the paper we're discussing. Identification 00:14:12.399 --> 00:14:15.460 in seasonal abundance of web and airborne sex 00:14:15.460 --> 00:14:17.879 pheromone components of the western black widow 00:14:17.879 --> 00:14:23.659 spiders, Lactrodectus hesperus. Before we get 00:14:23.659 --> 00:14:27.279 to the experiment and the results, who is Lactodectus 00:14:27.279 --> 00:14:30.700 hesperus? And the type of communication that 00:14:30.700 --> 00:14:33.259 we're talking about here, is it like super common 00:14:33.259 --> 00:14:36.460 among spiders in general? Or is this really like 00:14:36.460 --> 00:14:40.740 for a small subgroup? Yeah, so Lactodectus hesperus, 00:14:40.740 --> 00:14:42.600 so you nailed it right on, is a black widow, 00:14:42.659 --> 00:14:44.740 as the name says. It's the western black widow. 00:14:44.759 --> 00:14:50.379 She occurs from Mexico all the way up to... Northern 00:14:50.379 --> 00:14:54.320 British Columbia, if you wish. Well, yeah, midway 00:14:54.320 --> 00:14:59.559 up high. But we have a stable population in Tawasin. 00:14:59.820 --> 00:15:02.860 We have a very stable population on Makuba Island 00:15:02.860 --> 00:15:07.080 and also one in the Okanagan. So British Columbia 00:15:07.080 --> 00:15:09.440 is very well featured for this spider. That's 00:15:09.440 --> 00:15:11.299 basically the local black widow, which we have. 00:15:11.360 --> 00:15:14.820 If you have one, it's that one. yeah there is 00:15:14.820 --> 00:15:16.840 a concern for another black widow establishing 00:15:16.840 --> 00:15:20.440 in bc but luckily they have not been no reports 00:15:20.440 --> 00:15:23.740 yet so it's our endemic so the spider comes from 00:15:23.740 --> 00:15:27.899 here and it belongs here and we wanted to know 00:15:27.899 --> 00:15:32.240 how they use their chemical signals their sexual 00:15:32.240 --> 00:15:35.139 signals to be specific throughout the year so 00:15:35.139 --> 00:15:37.940 let me a little bit explain how the spider lives 00:15:37.940 --> 00:15:43.470 the spider lives under wood logs at beaches and 00:15:43.470 --> 00:15:48.169 the female lives for multiple years so she has 00:15:48.169 --> 00:15:50.870 multiple seasons where she can attract males 00:15:50.870 --> 00:15:53.129 males are much shorter lived they usually live 00:15:53.129 --> 00:15:56.509 after they mature for maybe 90 days if if they're 00:15:56.509 --> 00:16:02.309 lucky and so the female might want to attract 00:16:02.309 --> 00:16:04.870 males when they are around so during the mating 00:16:04.870 --> 00:16:07.690 season and we don't know and when you're a female 00:16:07.690 --> 00:16:10.059 spider that sits on her web and doesn't really 00:16:10.059 --> 00:16:12.220 leave her web and, you know, you're located underneath 00:16:12.220 --> 00:16:14.639 this log. How do you know when all the males 00:16:14.639 --> 00:16:17.200 are around? And how do you know when you should 00:16:17.200 --> 00:16:20.440 start signaling, so releasing your attractive 00:16:20.440 --> 00:16:23.120 scent, if you want to be among the first? And 00:16:23.120 --> 00:16:26.320 we found in the study, to spoiler some results 00:16:26.320 --> 00:16:29.360 already, that it is mainly the day length that 00:16:29.360 --> 00:16:31.620 provides some information about the seasonality 00:16:31.620 --> 00:16:33.940 and when the males are most likely to be around. 00:16:34.440 --> 00:16:37.340 And that seems to be the most strongest predictor. 00:16:37.840 --> 00:16:39.399 I'm sure there's something I missed. I'll circle 00:16:39.399 --> 00:16:41.000 back to it at some point. I'm sure it'll come 00:16:41.000 --> 00:16:43.240 back. But one thing that people are probably 00:16:43.240 --> 00:16:44.860 going to instantaneously wonder is, like, you're 00:16:44.860 --> 00:16:47.299 doing field work with spiders. These spiders 00:16:47.299 --> 00:16:50.220 aren't exactly safe. I mean, if we call someone 00:16:50.220 --> 00:16:52.580 who always kills their husband, we kind of call 00:16:52.580 --> 00:16:54.860 them a black widow, right? So that's already 00:16:54.860 --> 00:16:57.679 in the vernacular of humans. So how do you find 00:16:57.679 --> 00:16:59.980 them, capture them, and, I guess, experiment 00:16:59.980 --> 00:17:03.940 on them? Yeah, so the spider is likely not very 00:17:03.940 --> 00:17:06.759 aggressive. That is a very good thing to start 00:17:06.759 --> 00:17:10.420 out with. Yes, they have a medically relevant 00:17:10.420 --> 00:17:13.859 bite, but the statistics tell us, at least from 00:17:13.859 --> 00:17:17.539 the States, that 50 % of the bites are dry. No 00:17:17.539 --> 00:17:20.180 venom is applied, if a bite occurs, right? That 00:17:20.180 --> 00:17:24.339 high? 50 % is dry. That's what I mean, like that 00:17:24.339 --> 00:17:26.519 high, like 50%, they don't even inject the venom. 00:17:27.450 --> 00:17:32.269 And another 47 % of the bites are local symptoms. 00:17:32.410 --> 00:17:36.089 Like, imagine a very strong bee sting. Like, 00:17:36.089 --> 00:17:38.809 it's local muscle cramps, but it stays local 00:17:38.809 --> 00:17:41.109 wherever you get bitten. It's very uncomfortable. 00:17:41.589 --> 00:17:44.609 It's not recommended, but it's also not like, 00:17:44.789 --> 00:17:48.069 okay, I'm going to die. In 3 % of the cases, 00:17:48.809 --> 00:17:52.740 there are severe medical... conditions appearing. 00:17:52.940 --> 00:17:54.759 When the venom spreads throughout your body, 00:17:54.819 --> 00:17:57.900 as I just explained, it causes muscles to cramp, 00:17:57.920 --> 00:18:01.180 a certain type of musculature. And if your breathing 00:18:01.180 --> 00:18:04.440 muscles of your diaphragm are affected, you could 00:18:04.440 --> 00:18:07.279 suffocate, which is the death of a fire widow. 00:18:08.960 --> 00:18:14.619 But it is very rare that this happens, even among 00:18:14.619 --> 00:18:16.859 the people who get bitten. And the next thing 00:18:16.859 --> 00:18:19.839 is, as you asked how I work with them, well, 00:18:19.960 --> 00:18:21.700 the trick is not to get bitten, which is fairly 00:18:21.700 --> 00:18:23.920 easy with the spider because she's not aggressive. 00:18:24.559 --> 00:18:29.599 I never had a female spider even give me a threat 00:18:29.599 --> 00:18:33.339 pose of this kind of spider. They have it like 00:18:33.339 --> 00:18:36.980 a dog lays its ears back. The spider has its 00:18:36.980 --> 00:18:40.690 own threat pose. yes so the spider when you when 00:18:40.690 --> 00:18:42.569 you disturb the spider first response she will 00:18:42.569 --> 00:18:44.670 do is she will run away she will try to get away 00:18:44.670 --> 00:18:47.609 from you that's her instinct if you block her 00:18:47.609 --> 00:18:51.990 and really keep cornering her she has she usually 00:18:51.990 --> 00:18:54.589 then lifts her two front legs and maybe her second 00:18:54.589 --> 00:18:59.009 leg pair and to try to appear bigger that's what 00:18:59.009 --> 00:19:01.430 i deem a threat pose which i have not seen in 00:19:01.430 --> 00:19:05.170 the species by myself on my own i've seen videos 00:19:05.170 --> 00:19:10.730 of it And then if you keep harassing the spider, 00:19:10.789 --> 00:19:14.029 the spider has yet another level of defense where 00:19:14.029 --> 00:19:18.349 she pulls out large droplets of sticky glue out 00:19:18.349 --> 00:19:21.109 of her spitterettes and tries to wrap the attacker 00:19:21.109 --> 00:19:24.319 in this. gluey mess which is very efficient if 00:19:24.319 --> 00:19:26.859 you think it's a wasp attacking the spider like 00:19:26.859 --> 00:19:29.819 it can very much immobilize the wasp against 00:19:29.819 --> 00:19:32.680 us humans it has very little defense now but 00:19:32.680 --> 00:19:35.220 if you keep cornering the spider she might bite 00:19:35.220 --> 00:19:38.019 and that is something we wanted to avoid by any 00:19:38.019 --> 00:19:40.980 chance so the rule of thumb is was never squeeze 00:19:40.980 --> 00:19:45.880 a black widow ever ever with anything And additionally, 00:19:46.000 --> 00:19:49.519 just to be on the safe end, we used, we wore 00:19:49.519 --> 00:19:51.539 gloves, protective gloves when we worked with 00:19:51.539 --> 00:19:54.640 these spiders. And we used very long tongs. So 00:19:54.640 --> 00:19:56.839 to keep a physical distance from the spider, 00:19:56.920 --> 00:19:59.559 never have intentional physical skin contact 00:19:59.559 --> 00:20:02.460 with the spider. But even if it were to happen, 00:20:02.660 --> 00:20:05.319 the spider is not super dangerous in terms of 00:20:05.319 --> 00:20:09.539 aggression level. But yeah, we have had high 00:20:09.539 --> 00:20:13.380 respect of the spider and I still do. i i'm going 00:20:13.380 --> 00:20:15.940 to pivot back just one sec so you said and i 00:20:15.940 --> 00:20:19.059 gave a bit of a surprise so almost 50 of the 00:20:19.059 --> 00:20:22.200 bites don't even inject venom is that because 00:20:22.200 --> 00:20:24.660 the venom is hard to make and it doesn't want 00:20:24.660 --> 00:20:28.400 to use it unnecessarily or it's it's hard to 00:20:28.400 --> 00:20:30.940 predict the intention of the of a black widow 00:20:30.940 --> 00:20:35.299 yeah i assume that defensive bites without venom 00:20:35.299 --> 00:20:38.539 use could be just because venom is pure protein 00:20:38.539 --> 00:20:40.940 and relatively expensive to make. If there's 00:20:40.940 --> 00:20:44.460 a form of venom metering in a decision, I cannot 00:20:44.460 --> 00:20:48.700 assess. There is another big factor in there 00:20:48.700 --> 00:20:52.539 is what, in the medically relevant literature, 00:20:52.799 --> 00:20:54.400 the biggest problem is actually misidentified 00:20:54.400 --> 00:20:56.539 spider bites, where people come around and say, 00:20:56.579 --> 00:20:58.480 I got bit by a spider, I got bit by a black widow, 00:20:58.619 --> 00:21:00.839 but it then later turns out that it wasn't a 00:21:00.839 --> 00:21:04.119 spider in any form, shape, or way. And that is 00:21:04.119 --> 00:21:06.720 actually the bigger medical concern around spider 00:21:06.720 --> 00:21:08.819 bites. When people come and insist that they 00:21:08.819 --> 00:21:10.880 have been bitten by a certain type of spider, 00:21:10.940 --> 00:21:12.859 they get treated for it. But they have another 00:21:12.859 --> 00:21:15.039 completely different medical condition, I don't 00:21:15.039 --> 00:21:18.339 know, an infected bacterial infection from a 00:21:18.339 --> 00:21:22.579 normal pierced wound. And if they didn't get 00:21:22.579 --> 00:21:24.680 treated for a black widow bite, for example, 00:21:24.680 --> 00:21:28.380 the underlying condition remains untreated and 00:21:28.380 --> 00:21:33.220 can cause real medical problems. With black widows, 00:21:33.220 --> 00:21:36.859 as I said, when we know that it was a black widow 00:21:36.859 --> 00:21:39.000 bite because someone took a photo of the biting 00:21:39.000 --> 00:21:42.339 animal or even captured it, that's usually the 00:21:42.339 --> 00:21:45.279 gold standard. If you're not a professional, 00:21:45.599 --> 00:21:48.859 definitely don't sweat it to try to capture the 00:21:48.859 --> 00:21:52.880 spider after she bit you. There's no point in 00:21:52.880 --> 00:21:55.819 getting bit again. There are a bunch of spiders 00:21:55.819 --> 00:21:58.380 that look like black widows. but are not, which 00:21:58.380 --> 00:22:01.359 are very, very common in and around houses also 00:22:01.359 --> 00:22:05.759 in Burnaby. So these misidentifications are another 00:22:05.759 --> 00:22:09.240 layer that comes into that. But of the confirmed 00:22:09.240 --> 00:22:12.619 like widow bites, roughly 50 % are, as far as 00:22:12.619 --> 00:22:15.359 we know, dry. That's crazy. Okay, well, let's 00:22:15.359 --> 00:22:17.559 go back to the paper because I got to sidetracked 00:22:17.559 --> 00:22:19.599 again. So this paper was all about the different 00:22:19.599 --> 00:22:23.240 pheromones that are, I guess, embedded into the 00:22:23.240 --> 00:22:28.029 web, depending on the baiting schedule, I guess 00:22:28.029 --> 00:22:30.269 is the better way to say it. So you found different 00:22:30.269 --> 00:22:32.869 chemicals, the chemical of the web changed over 00:22:32.869 --> 00:22:36.809 the year? Yeah, so we found actually a very sophisticated 00:22:36.809 --> 00:22:39.789 communication system. When you imagine you're 00:22:39.789 --> 00:22:42.309 this black widow, and you're sitting on the same 00:22:42.309 --> 00:22:45.049 web, basically in the same house the entire year, 00:22:45.150 --> 00:22:48.150 and you're waiting in the house for a mate, and 00:22:48.150 --> 00:22:50.029 you're not really leaving the house, and there's 00:22:50.029 --> 00:22:54.220 no online dating. How do you communicate? You 00:22:54.220 --> 00:22:57.339 can't go to the club. There's no alcohol. There 00:22:57.339 --> 00:22:59.460 is no alcohol for these spiders. No, unfortunately 00:22:59.460 --> 00:23:03.079 not, no. So how do you fund a mate? So these 00:23:03.079 --> 00:23:06.920 spiders, if they were to release a smell, that 00:23:06.920 --> 00:23:09.880 smell would vanish the moment they stop behaviorally 00:23:09.880 --> 00:23:12.660 releasing it. So most insects, for example, moths, 00:23:12.779 --> 00:23:15.420 they actually at a certain hour of the day, they 00:23:15.420 --> 00:23:21.420 start pumping behind a pheromone into the air. 00:23:21.849 --> 00:23:24.769 which is around only at that time on only for 00:23:24.769 --> 00:23:27.269 that location because once they stop pumping 00:23:27.269 --> 00:23:29.710 once the male had arrived they fly off and are 00:23:29.710 --> 00:23:32.089 then on a completely different spot but these 00:23:32.089 --> 00:23:34.089 spiders they are sessile on the same location 00:23:34.089 --> 00:23:37.430 for them to only call during certain time winners 00:23:37.430 --> 00:23:42.009 wouldn't be as beneficial so and this is exactly 00:23:42.009 --> 00:23:43.990 what we found we found that these spiders they 00:23:43.990 --> 00:23:48.589 put a chemical onto the web that slowly degrades 00:23:48.589 --> 00:23:51.930 over the course of weeks And one of the degradation 00:23:51.930 --> 00:23:55.809 products, so there's a chemical bond, it's an 00:23:55.809 --> 00:23:59.710 ester bond. And when that ester bond is separated, 00:23:59.910 --> 00:24:03.150 you release a short -chain carboxylic acid, which 00:24:03.150 --> 00:24:09.190 kind of smells like stinky cheese or gym socks, 00:24:09.509 --> 00:24:13.430 if you wish. Wait, did you isolate it and then 00:24:13.430 --> 00:24:17.180 grow more of it? or you can buy that in a bottle 00:24:17.180 --> 00:24:21.240 and it pure itself it's overwhelmingly stinky 00:24:21.240 --> 00:24:24.539 but because these spiders release only so little 00:24:24.539 --> 00:24:27.119 amount at a given time that it was actually almost 00:24:27.119 --> 00:24:30.119 for us virtually impossible to detect the smell 00:24:30.119 --> 00:24:33.640 compound by itself but so the spider releases 00:24:33.640 --> 00:24:37.880 very constantly but very little amount at a given 00:24:37.880 --> 00:24:40.440 time of this very very for a stinky compound 00:24:42.210 --> 00:24:46.609 It's called butyric acid, so the acid of old 00:24:46.609 --> 00:24:50.369 butter. And this is literally how it smells. 00:24:50.730 --> 00:24:56.009 So what we found is that the chemical, the pheromone 00:24:56.009 --> 00:24:58.109 the spider produces at the beginning that slowly 00:24:58.109 --> 00:25:02.890 degrades, degrades, releases the smelly compound, 00:25:02.970 --> 00:25:06.019 and then there is a rust. that doesn't degrade 00:25:06.019 --> 00:25:07.720 that doesn't fly away and we don't know what 00:25:07.720 --> 00:25:09.920 this rest is about but we could find both things 00:25:09.920 --> 00:25:13.059 we could find that this this larger molecule 00:25:13.059 --> 00:25:16.940 was present and then you break off a piece that 00:25:16.940 --> 00:25:18.720 flies off which we cannot see anymore and do 00:25:18.720 --> 00:25:20.900 you see the smaller piece and we could calculate 00:25:20.900 --> 00:25:23.460 how much must have been released in that given 00:25:23.460 --> 00:25:28.740 time of these two fragments now I just mentioned 00:25:28.740 --> 00:25:31.700 that this butyric acid, so this stinky cheese 00:25:31.700 --> 00:25:34.599 smell, attracts the males to the females. And 00:25:34.599 --> 00:25:37.680 when they arrive on the web, the male can taste 00:25:37.680 --> 00:25:40.779 that compound, the chemical the spiders have 00:25:40.779 --> 00:25:42.900 produced in the first place. You know, the stuff 00:25:42.900 --> 00:25:45.940 that is slowly being deteriorated. And that, 00:25:46.039 --> 00:25:49.059 when the males taste that compound, it releases 00:25:49.059 --> 00:25:52.259 a behavior in the male that initiates courtship. 00:25:52.480 --> 00:25:55.539 where when he tastes that compound, he starts 00:25:55.539 --> 00:25:58.119 bundling up the female's web. He starts cutting 00:25:58.119 --> 00:26:01.819 silk strands. He starts adding his own silk and 00:26:01.819 --> 00:26:04.400 bundling up to a tight ball. And we don't know 00:26:04.400 --> 00:26:07.740 how or why, but somehow the female find that 00:26:07.740 --> 00:26:09.960 incredibly sexy when her house is being destroyed 00:26:09.960 --> 00:26:16.940 by the male. And then if she convinces him sufficiently, 00:26:18.029 --> 00:26:21.750 then they mate. And in this species, so Electrodectus 00:26:21.750 --> 00:26:24.450 hesperus, there's only 10 % chance of sexual 00:26:24.450 --> 00:26:27.309 cannibalism. So the males survive most of the 00:26:27.309 --> 00:26:29.890 mating encounters. Good for them. But they still 00:26:29.890 --> 00:26:32.529 only live 90 days? Yeah, they're very short -lived. 00:26:32.890 --> 00:26:34.769 So does that mean they get to mate more than 00:26:34.769 --> 00:26:39.369 once? Yes, they might have the intention of mating 00:26:39.369 --> 00:26:43.380 a few more times. We don't know really how often, 00:26:43.500 --> 00:26:47.319 or I don't know offhand how often these males 00:26:47.319 --> 00:26:51.579 can mate with how many females, but definitely 00:26:51.579 --> 00:26:54.319 more than once. And the females, likewise, they 00:26:54.319 --> 00:26:57.160 mate with multiple males. But again, once they 00:26:57.160 --> 00:27:00.799 have had a few males, they might become more 00:27:00.799 --> 00:27:04.160 reluctant to mate again. So, yeah, I'm still 00:27:04.160 --> 00:27:06.420 kind of getting over the fact that the male is 00:27:06.420 --> 00:27:10.140 destroying the web. probably repairing it terribly 00:27:10.140 --> 00:27:13.680 at the same time. No repairing. No, but you said 00:27:13.680 --> 00:27:16.059 he was adding his own web. Yeah, to bundle it 00:27:16.059 --> 00:27:20.680 up. Oh. Like a gift wrapping paper around it 00:27:20.680 --> 00:27:22.980 so that you cannot access it anymore. Like it's 00:27:22.980 --> 00:27:27.900 literally boxed away. There is an ongoing research 00:27:27.900 --> 00:27:30.140 project from us right now to investigate this 00:27:30.140 --> 00:27:33.200 stuff further. What is happening here is, I just 00:27:33.200 --> 00:27:36.480 mentioned that the chemicals are disseminating 00:27:36.480 --> 00:27:39.160 from the web. So the female puts chemicals on 00:27:39.160 --> 00:27:41.960 the web as she's building the web. And then as 00:27:41.960 --> 00:27:45.779 long as the web is there, it has these chemicals 00:27:45.779 --> 00:27:48.960 and these chemicals slowly fly off and attract 00:27:48.960 --> 00:27:52.460 other males. But what happens when a male cuts 00:27:52.460 --> 00:27:57.759 and bundles the female web up, this web does 00:27:57.759 --> 00:28:01.079 become unattractive to other males. And we don't 00:28:01.079 --> 00:28:06.359 really know how. Is it because he blocks that? 00:28:06.910 --> 00:28:09.509 chemical reaction so that the female compound 00:28:09.509 --> 00:28:11.970 doesn't fall apart and doesn't release these 00:28:11.970 --> 00:28:16.049 butyric acid anymore or is it because it decreases 00:28:16.049 --> 00:28:20.609 the overall evaporation surface or and this is 00:28:20.609 --> 00:28:23.890 what our preliminary results point to maybe the 00:28:23.890 --> 00:28:28.210 male at a male specific compounds like i am here 00:28:28.210 --> 00:28:32.470 signal or i was here signal and that the tears 00:28:32.470 --> 00:28:37.460 repels other males And this is what our ongoing 00:28:37.460 --> 00:28:42.079 research right now is pointing towards. So it's 00:28:42.079 --> 00:28:46.319 both a male -male signal, signals other males 00:28:46.319 --> 00:28:48.779 like, no need to come here, this web is done. 00:28:49.180 --> 00:28:52.359 And at the same time, a male -female signal is 00:28:52.359 --> 00:28:54.519 like, look how sexy I am, I can destroy your 00:28:54.519 --> 00:28:58.839 house. And then the female find that attractive. 00:28:59.279 --> 00:29:02.880 There is potentially for the female the ability 00:29:02.880 --> 00:29:06.190 to assess how much resources this male has. Because, 00:29:06.250 --> 00:29:08.369 you know, males, when they mature, they stop 00:29:08.369 --> 00:29:10.890 eating. They're these tiny little spiders. They 00:29:10.890 --> 00:29:13.230 stop eating. And for these 90 days, they run 00:29:13.230 --> 00:29:15.309 around and their only objective is to find a 00:29:15.309 --> 00:29:19.569 mate, find those females. So when you don't eat 00:29:19.569 --> 00:29:22.710 anymore and you produce a lot of silk, and silk 00:29:22.710 --> 00:29:26.829 is pure protein, it can become costly. And so 00:29:26.829 --> 00:29:29.930 it could be that the female can assess by his 00:29:29.930 --> 00:29:32.269 bundling behavior, like the amount of silk he 00:29:32.269 --> 00:29:37.640 adds to the web, how rich in resources this male 00:29:37.640 --> 00:29:40.779 is and how good his quality as a potential mate 00:29:40.779 --> 00:29:43.240 could be. That's an assumption we don't know 00:29:43.240 --> 00:29:46.140 yet, but that's a potential explanation. That's 00:29:46.140 --> 00:29:48.819 really cool. What about the female spider, though? 00:29:48.859 --> 00:29:52.099 Is there some drawback to putting the pheromones 00:29:52.099 --> 00:29:54.940 into the web? Does it cause the web to degrade? 00:29:55.660 --> 00:29:59.039 Is there an evolutionary or is there a cost associated 00:29:59.039 --> 00:30:02.230 to producing that pheromones? is there like why 00:30:02.230 --> 00:30:04.529 why not just produce it year -round and hope 00:30:04.529 --> 00:30:08.150 for the best instead of putting it only when 00:30:08.150 --> 00:30:11.269 the males are available that's an excellent question 00:30:11.269 --> 00:30:14.549 so when you read the biology textbooks all of 00:30:14.549 --> 00:30:17.170 them basically say that pheromones are cheap 00:30:17.170 --> 00:30:20.109 so it would make sense to actually max out the 00:30:20.109 --> 00:30:22.869 production constantly produce all year round 00:30:22.869 --> 00:30:25.549 if they're really cheap but when you then look 00:30:25.549 --> 00:30:28.930 at the underlying studies there are as far as 00:30:28.930 --> 00:30:31.619 i know like five studies they demonstrate that 00:30:31.619 --> 00:30:34.079 pheromones are actually quite costly. And there's 00:30:34.079 --> 00:30:37.119 a single study in a single animal where it seems 00:30:37.119 --> 00:30:39.680 to be fairly cheap. So it might be cheap for 00:30:39.680 --> 00:30:42.059 some animals, might be more expensive for others. 00:30:42.160 --> 00:30:44.380 Here in this case with the black widow, this 00:30:44.380 --> 00:30:47.180 pheromone they produce contains nitrogen. So 00:30:47.180 --> 00:30:51.339 it's an amino acid derivative. And that usually 00:30:51.339 --> 00:30:53.440 points that it's actually nutritionally expensive. 00:30:54.140 --> 00:30:58.130 And we have done now several research. projects 00:30:58.130 --> 00:31:00.529 including this one where we demonstrate the females 00:31:00.529 --> 00:31:05.410 are not wasting that stuff they use it when chance 00:31:05.410 --> 00:31:09.470 of encounter is high or necessary when females 00:31:09.470 --> 00:31:12.329 get starved their production of pheromone goes 00:31:12.329 --> 00:31:15.789 down when females get really old and you know 00:31:15.789 --> 00:31:18.369 senescent then their pheromone production goes 00:31:18.369 --> 00:31:22.529 down so it seems that there seems to be some 00:31:22.529 --> 00:31:24.609 constraint associated with pheromone production 00:31:24.609 --> 00:31:29.220 of in this spider that's fascinating so you're 00:31:29.220 --> 00:31:33.880 almost i guess in some respects turning old ideas 00:31:33.880 --> 00:31:36.980 on its head to some extent well that's what we 00:31:36.980 --> 00:31:38.799 are always trying to do with science uh that 00:31:38.799 --> 00:31:42.259 we're not driven by dogma but trying to always 00:31:42.259 --> 00:31:45.140 well we observe something and then we have okay 00:31:45.140 --> 00:31:48.400 how do we explain this and maybe our textbook 00:31:48.400 --> 00:31:53.339 assumption is partially correct Right, so in 00:31:53.339 --> 00:31:55.019 many cases they could be cheap, but in these 00:31:55.019 --> 00:31:57.859 instances they're not, or maybe it's more granular, 00:31:58.039 --> 00:32:01.180 maybe it's more widespread. I guess that's still 00:32:01.180 --> 00:32:07.140 to be determined, I guess, eh? Yes, so there's 00:32:07.140 --> 00:32:12.440 this whole theory based on the cost of a signal, 00:32:12.500 --> 00:32:17.660 where if a signal is very expensive, then let's 00:32:17.660 --> 00:32:21.299 say... translated for our terms like if you drive 00:32:21.299 --> 00:32:24.599 a very expensive vehicle that kind of demonstrates 00:32:24.599 --> 00:32:27.759 to the world or to potential mates that you are 00:32:27.759 --> 00:32:30.579 a very wealthy man or you just have a very good 00:32:30.579 --> 00:32:33.940 credit line which would be cheating in this case 00:32:33.940 --> 00:32:40.700 right but so if if a signal for an animal is 00:32:40.700 --> 00:32:44.660 hard to fake or impossible to fake then it would 00:32:44.660 --> 00:32:48.079 be an honest signal it really reflects the condition 00:32:48.079 --> 00:32:52.619 of the animal. That is the handicap principle. 00:32:52.839 --> 00:32:54.700 There are lots of different theories around that, 00:32:54.819 --> 00:32:58.680 but a very simplified version of it. Now, if 00:32:58.680 --> 00:33:05.220 a signal is not expensive, then you can just 00:33:05.220 --> 00:33:07.480 pump it out and then there shouldn't be a handicap 00:33:07.480 --> 00:33:11.299 around it and there shouldn't be... much constrained 00:33:11.299 --> 00:33:15.059 around it or selection pressure for honesty that 00:33:15.059 --> 00:33:17.240 you can use it to assess the quality of something 00:33:17.240 --> 00:33:20.980 now with this goes a little bit beyond the study 00:33:20.980 --> 00:33:25.140 at hand but with a very close relative to false 00:33:25.140 --> 00:33:28.720 black widow our research team found that when 00:33:28.720 --> 00:33:34.140 females get starved for a long time like i'm 00:33:34.140 --> 00:33:38.029 talking 40 weeks like a very very long time their 00:33:38.029 --> 00:33:41.349 ability to produce pheromone goes down because 00:33:41.349 --> 00:33:44.450 you know no food is hard to pump out stuff but 00:33:44.450 --> 00:33:50.809 they cheat by changing the rate at which the 00:33:50.809 --> 00:33:53.309 pheromone is being released so you remember there 00:33:53.309 --> 00:33:55.430 was this chemical reaction happening on the web 00:33:55.430 --> 00:33:58.609 that slowly degrades that stuff they produce 00:33:58.609 --> 00:34:04.039 and releases the made attractant well When these 00:34:04.039 --> 00:34:07.559 very, very starved females that really need a 00:34:07.559 --> 00:34:09.639 mate, you know, when you're like, okay, I haven't 00:34:09.639 --> 00:34:12.079 been mated yet. My only goal in life right now 00:34:12.079 --> 00:34:15.679 is to pump out babies. And I just need a male 00:34:15.679 --> 00:34:20.219 right now. Try to become more attractive to males 00:34:20.219 --> 00:34:25.780 by increasing this release rate. So they produce 00:34:25.780 --> 00:34:28.579 less pheromone, but they release the smell compound 00:34:28.579 --> 00:34:31.780 much faster. in hope to attract a male now when 00:34:31.780 --> 00:34:34.059 the male then comes and mates with these very 00:34:34.059 --> 00:34:37.860 very starved females they barely produce offspring 00:34:37.860 --> 00:34:41.860 so it's it's a it's very costly it's relatively 00:34:41.860 --> 00:34:45.400 costly for a male to be deceived but because 00:34:45.400 --> 00:34:47.800 this happens so rarely there's not a lot of selection 00:34:47.800 --> 00:34:54.179 pressure against it the compound itself is costly 00:34:54.179 --> 00:34:58.039 and an honest signal But somehow the females 00:34:58.039 --> 00:35:01.619 can convert that caustic signal into a deceptive 00:35:01.619 --> 00:35:05.320 lie. Now, we just also found out that the same 00:35:05.320 --> 00:35:08.860 holds true for old females. So when you have 00:35:08.860 --> 00:35:12.860 females that are 500 or 800 days past maturity, 00:35:13.079 --> 00:35:15.920 that's a relatively long time. That's on the 00:35:15.920 --> 00:35:19.199 top end of their life expectancy. And when they 00:35:19.199 --> 00:35:22.260 have been unmated, their ability to produce pheromone 00:35:22.260 --> 00:35:25.500 also goes down. But again, they increase this 00:35:25.500 --> 00:35:28.760 conversion rate. And then males cannot smell 00:35:28.760 --> 00:35:32.320 the difference between a very old female or a 00:35:32.320 --> 00:35:36.400 very young female. But a very old female is by 00:35:36.400 --> 00:35:38.960 far not as fecund as a very young female. So 00:35:38.960 --> 00:35:45.920 there is ability, plasticity for cheating if 00:35:45.920 --> 00:35:48.900 the need arises, but only if the need arises. 00:35:49.239 --> 00:35:52.820 And that way, they only do it when a need arises. 00:35:53.440 --> 00:35:56.099 then the system is honest and stable otherwise 00:35:56.099 --> 00:36:00.760 it could become evolutionary unstable and be 00:36:00.760 --> 00:36:04.019 favored in a different direction wow sorry i'm 00:36:04.019 --> 00:36:05.619 just a little bit of shock that's awesome like 00:36:05.619 --> 00:36:07.420 i did not expect this conversation to go there 00:36:07.420 --> 00:36:09.659 and somewhere along the way i also thought of 00:36:09.659 --> 00:36:13.219 a like i was before we got to the climax of that 00:36:13.219 --> 00:36:15.559 explanation i was thinking man i wish you know 00:36:15.559 --> 00:36:18.019 talking sometimes was more expensive because 00:36:18.730 --> 00:36:21.090 sometimes my kids talk too much and it would 00:36:21.090 --> 00:36:22.989 be nice if it just cost them a little bit more 00:36:22.989 --> 00:36:28.449 now how how are these measurements made though 00:36:28.449 --> 00:36:31.449 so like you've been telling us kind of like your 00:36:31.449 --> 00:36:34.670 observations but to create those observation 00:36:34.670 --> 00:36:38.130 lists of the chemicals requires some whimsical 00:36:38.130 --> 00:36:41.489 wavelengths yeah so the detection of these chemicals 00:36:41.489 --> 00:36:45.909 is is a field of study and it's in their own 00:36:45.909 --> 00:36:50.110 in their own right These animals produce minute 00:36:50.110 --> 00:36:54.269 amounts. Those are nanogram amounts. So that's 00:36:54.269 --> 00:37:03.269 minute. That's a gram of sugar, but now 10 to 00:37:03.269 --> 00:37:07.090 the power of minus 9. So that is a very, very 00:37:07.090 --> 00:37:10.250 small number of not even a grain of salt. It's 00:37:10.250 --> 00:37:12.650 much less than that of amount which they produce 00:37:12.650 --> 00:37:18.909 per web. When we deal with these tiny, tiny amounts, 00:37:19.030 --> 00:37:21.489 we have very little machinery available because 00:37:21.489 --> 00:37:24.789 there are not a lot of field of studies that 00:37:24.789 --> 00:37:28.730 use such high sensitive machines to detect these 00:37:28.730 --> 00:37:32.090 compounds because usually we know what we're 00:37:32.090 --> 00:37:34.769 dealing with. Is it like parts per billion, parts 00:37:34.769 --> 00:37:38.429 per trillion? Well, a number with nine zeros. 00:37:38.989 --> 00:37:43.289 One nanogram per gram would translate into 0 00:37:43.289 --> 00:37:47.880 .01 parts per million. So these are very, very 00:37:47.880 --> 00:37:50.320 little amounts these spiders produce. So we don't 00:37:50.320 --> 00:37:53.099 have a lot of different tools available that 00:37:53.099 --> 00:37:57.460 reliably detect them. And historically, for insects, 00:37:57.659 --> 00:38:01.400 what used to go very well are gas chromatographs 00:38:01.400 --> 00:38:04.340 that are coupled with mass spectrometers. A gas 00:38:04.340 --> 00:38:07.179 chromatograph separates a mixture of chemicals, 00:38:07.280 --> 00:38:12.579 and the mass spectrometer can... bombard these 00:38:12.579 --> 00:38:14.820 chemicals that are separated, so each chemical 00:38:14.820 --> 00:38:18.679 at a time, bombards them with an electric charge, 00:38:19.059 --> 00:38:24.239 ionizes basically and breaks the molecule into 00:38:24.239 --> 00:38:27.880 fragments and then detects and basically weighs 00:38:27.880 --> 00:38:29.840 the fragments. Like imagine you have a house 00:38:29.840 --> 00:38:34.079 of Lego and you smash it against the wall and 00:38:34.079 --> 00:38:35.900 then you have all these fragments and that's 00:38:35.900 --> 00:38:37.519 all you see. You see only the fragments. You 00:38:37.519 --> 00:38:39.980 have to try to imagine how did the house look. 00:38:40.429 --> 00:38:43.050 before you fruit against the wall right so you 00:38:43.050 --> 00:38:45.090 have a bunch of yellows and reds and blues and 00:38:45.090 --> 00:38:49.170 blacks and sometimes you have a have a wall and 00:38:49.170 --> 00:38:53.010 sometimes you have a foundational square or you 00:38:53.010 --> 00:38:55.269 know like sometimes some fragments are bigger 00:38:55.269 --> 00:38:58.250 than others that give you a little bit more information 00:38:58.250 --> 00:39:00.789 but yeah if you're if you're really unlucky you 00:39:00.789 --> 00:39:03.070 only get the little littlest pieces and then 00:39:03.070 --> 00:39:06.449 to reconstruct that that is very difficult But 00:39:06.449 --> 00:39:09.010 yeah, that's basically how a mass spectrometer 00:39:09.010 --> 00:39:12.510 works. And that is what has been used very efficiently 00:39:12.510 --> 00:39:16.449 for insects. Now, spider chemical communication 00:39:16.449 --> 00:39:19.710 is in its infancy, so we have very little understanding 00:39:19.710 --> 00:39:22.510 of what is happening, mainly because spiders 00:39:22.510 --> 00:39:25.349 seem to use compounds that are not detectable 00:39:25.349 --> 00:39:29.690 by GC -MS, that are too polar, so too acidic, 00:39:29.909 --> 00:39:36.309 in other words. and we found out that a different 00:39:36.309 --> 00:39:39.130 machine that over the last 20 years got a lot 00:39:39.130 --> 00:39:42.389 of appreciation and sophisticated development 00:39:42.389 --> 00:39:45.530 called liquid chromatography which can be coupled 00:39:45.530 --> 00:39:50.030 with mass spectrometry that it's a different 00:39:50.030 --> 00:39:54.489 way of separating compounds basically and with 00:39:54.489 --> 00:39:58.150 that machine we can now find these fragments 00:39:58.150 --> 00:40:00.510 very well and but then you still are in front 00:40:00.510 --> 00:40:03.050 of the problem with that machine you detect basically 00:40:03.050 --> 00:40:05.110 all the compounds that are on a spider's web 00:40:05.110 --> 00:40:07.869 not only the pheromone and then you need to know 00:40:07.869 --> 00:40:11.329 how do i know now which is the pheromone and 00:40:11.329 --> 00:40:15.030 we usually use a control group for that so we 00:40:15.030 --> 00:40:18.670 use spiders of the same species but that don't 00:40:18.670 --> 00:40:20.809 produce pheromone for example teenager females 00:40:20.809 --> 00:40:25.599 or or teenager males that still build a web, 00:40:25.760 --> 00:40:29.340 but don't produce the pheromone yet. Or you can 00:40:29.340 --> 00:40:31.539 even use sometimes mated females, depending on 00:40:31.539 --> 00:40:33.840 the species. And you compare the chemical profiles. 00:40:34.159 --> 00:40:37.019 And now there are very, very sophisticated computer 00:40:37.019 --> 00:40:41.360 algorithms that can compare these different profiles 00:40:41.360 --> 00:40:46.519 very, very, very well. And calculate as the most 00:40:46.519 --> 00:40:49.760 likely candidate for it to be a pheromone. And 00:40:49.760 --> 00:40:54.030 with that, we can... then have an idea of which 00:40:54.030 --> 00:40:57.530 the pheromone might be. Then we need to reconstruct 00:40:57.530 --> 00:41:01.710 it from the mass spectra and hopefully have not 00:41:01.710 --> 00:41:04.090 to use all kinds of other analytical tools to 00:41:04.090 --> 00:41:06.949 really reconstruct that structure. And once we 00:41:06.949 --> 00:41:09.590 have reconstructed the structure, which is just 00:41:09.590 --> 00:41:12.130 an idea at this point, we need to find a chemist 00:41:12.130 --> 00:41:15.710 who synthesizes the chemical in a lab, presents 00:41:15.710 --> 00:41:18.010 it to us. We present it to the spider and ask 00:41:18.010 --> 00:41:20.250 the spider, is this the stuff you like? And the 00:41:20.250 --> 00:41:24.679 spider might tell us, nah. Wrong stuff. Or Spider 00:41:24.679 --> 00:41:26.519 -Man tell us, yes, that's the right deal. Well, 00:41:26.559 --> 00:41:28.840 actually I respond to it. And so we then have 00:41:28.840 --> 00:41:31.679 a Fairmont identified. Once we have it identified, 00:41:31.920 --> 00:41:36.000 the game becomes much, much easier. We can quantify 00:41:36.000 --> 00:41:38.820 it. So we can see now, now we know what to look 00:41:38.820 --> 00:41:42.239 for. Does what we look for change from January 00:41:42.239 --> 00:41:44.960 to December? And we just measure it every month. 00:41:45.079 --> 00:41:46.619 And that's what we did in the study at hand. 00:41:46.800 --> 00:41:50.760 We went down to Tawasin, to a beach for an entire 00:41:50.760 --> 00:41:53.300 year where we had spiders, which we collected 00:41:53.300 --> 00:41:55.820 there locally. We had them in little boxes so 00:41:55.820 --> 00:41:57.860 that they would build us a web. We fed them in 00:41:57.860 --> 00:42:01.300 these boxes. But once a month, we collected their 00:42:01.300 --> 00:42:04.900 web. And then we measured how much pheromone 00:42:04.900 --> 00:42:07.639 was there. Wow. So even at the end of it all, 00:42:07.739 --> 00:42:10.900 even at this sophisticated level, there's still 00:42:10.900 --> 00:42:14.659 a little bit of guess and check. oh yeah yeah 00:42:14.659 --> 00:42:19.960 i mean the the hypothesis or the the working 00:42:19.960 --> 00:42:23.860 the methodology says it's there but the specific 00:42:23.860 --> 00:42:26.360 how you put what the pheromone together is a 00:42:26.360 --> 00:42:27.980 little bit of guess and check until you get it 00:42:27.980 --> 00:42:31.280 right that the spider reacts to it yeah there's 00:42:31.280 --> 00:42:33.559 a lot of guess and check and very often we won't 00:42:33.559 --> 00:42:35.940 have sufficient information to actually make 00:42:35.940 --> 00:42:40.840 a guess then we have to mass collect that pheromone 00:42:40.840 --> 00:42:44.840 isolate it and use a different machine called 00:42:44.840 --> 00:42:49.500 nuclear resonance spectrometry spectroscopy sorry 00:42:49.500 --> 00:42:54.659 nmr and if we have enough material with that 00:42:54.659 --> 00:42:57.460 we have a more sophisticated guess what compound 00:42:57.460 --> 00:43:00.619 we might have yay more wavelengths okay so where 00:43:00.619 --> 00:43:03.019 does this research go now i mean you've kind 00:43:03.019 --> 00:43:04.639 of already you've already hinted at it where 00:43:04.639 --> 00:43:08.019 it's going but layout the next uh the next where 00:43:08.019 --> 00:43:10.699 to take this yeah as as mentioned we are currently 00:43:10.699 --> 00:43:14.900 looking at these uh these age -related signals 00:43:14.900 --> 00:43:17.500 that studies basically being wrapped up now and 00:43:17.500 --> 00:43:19.920 we hope to submit it and publish it fairly soon 00:43:19.920 --> 00:43:23.599 uh at the same time we're looking at these male 00:43:23.599 --> 00:43:27.420 courtship signal is is a is there a male pheromone 00:43:27.420 --> 00:43:29.960 and the silk the male uses during the courtship 00:43:29.960 --> 00:43:32.659 which might deter other males that is an ongoing 00:43:32.659 --> 00:43:36.440 project right now We also want to see how females 00:43:36.440 --> 00:43:39.340 respond to the presence of other females. We 00:43:39.340 --> 00:43:42.559 demonstrated in the past that these females can 00:43:42.559 --> 00:43:45.619 smell each other based on their pheromone, so 00:43:45.619 --> 00:43:48.260 they know how hard the competition is. And we 00:43:48.260 --> 00:43:51.980 also know that they change their own mate calling 00:43:51.980 --> 00:43:54.460 and also their web architecture based on the 00:43:54.460 --> 00:43:56.400 number of females around them. We want to know 00:43:56.400 --> 00:44:00.800 to what extent do females... So when you go in 00:44:00.800 --> 00:44:03.190 a field... you find a female somewhere you're 00:44:03.190 --> 00:44:05.230 very likely to find another female within the 00:44:05.230 --> 00:44:09.190 same square meter but so they cluster in the 00:44:09.190 --> 00:44:12.789 field so you have sometimes pockets within suitable 00:44:12.789 --> 00:44:15.530 habitat but you find females and then you have 00:44:15.530 --> 00:44:18.650 other pockets that look identical to us where 00:44:18.650 --> 00:44:22.429 there's just nothing and we we don't really understand 00:44:22.429 --> 00:44:25.730 this clustering behavior and i want to find out 00:44:25.730 --> 00:44:28.949 currently with a project to what extent the females 00:44:28.949 --> 00:44:33.940 use pheromone to inhabit that choice, like where 00:44:33.940 --> 00:44:37.739 to settle, where to build your web. And these 00:44:37.739 --> 00:44:39.820 are the ongoing projects with these Black Widows, 00:44:39.880 --> 00:44:44.619 which we're doing right now. And we hope to uncover 00:44:44.619 --> 00:44:48.260 a little bit more. Okay, so I got one random 00:44:48.260 --> 00:44:50.199 question that came to my head because I remember 00:44:50.199 --> 00:44:53.420 I take in a lot of random media science and otherwise. 00:44:54.119 --> 00:44:56.860 And I remember not too distant past ago, there 00:44:56.860 --> 00:44:59.579 was a cave. I believe it was in Germany, but 00:44:59.579 --> 00:45:01.679 I could be wrong. It was in Europe where they 00:45:01.679 --> 00:45:06.099 found, what was it, 20 ,000 spider individuals 00:45:06.099 --> 00:45:09.079 living together in one interconnected web. Do 00:45:09.079 --> 00:45:11.980 I remember that right? Yeah, I saw it too. It 00:45:11.980 --> 00:45:14.400 was massive, huge web. And there were multiple 00:45:14.400 --> 00:45:17.440 different species in the same web. Yeah, it's 00:45:17.440 --> 00:45:20.579 massive. These web sharing events are quite stunning. 00:45:20.699 --> 00:45:22.869 We don't really understand how that works. Right. 00:45:22.969 --> 00:45:25.789 Just when you said different areas with clustering 00:45:25.789 --> 00:45:28.070 and no clustering, for some reason that popped 00:45:28.070 --> 00:45:29.670 into my mind. It's like, oh yeah, I read that. 00:45:30.269 --> 00:45:33.969 But that seems to be more an all year round permanent 00:45:33.969 --> 00:45:39.150 event. With Black Widow, we have a very fascinating 00:45:39.150 --> 00:45:42.889 thing. You know, the winters can be quite unpleasant 00:45:42.889 --> 00:45:46.699 in Vancouver. or raincouver as we used to call 00:45:46.699 --> 00:45:50.159 it right these these spiders also prefer the 00:45:50.159 --> 00:45:52.280 summer seemingly in the summer they're solitary 00:45:52.280 --> 00:45:54.860 every spider has her own web they have their 00:45:54.860 --> 00:45:58.039 own little area of the log and that's their home 00:45:58.039 --> 00:46:02.099 but a team also from simon fritz university a 00:46:02.099 --> 00:46:06.139 while back 15 years ago found out that these 00:46:06.139 --> 00:46:09.219 spiders in the winter when it rains they tend 00:46:09.219 --> 00:46:11.579 to do web showing behavior where the females 00:46:12.730 --> 00:46:15.650 their webs kind of merge into each other. And 00:46:15.650 --> 00:46:17.730 sometimes you find three or four females on the 00:46:17.730 --> 00:46:20.630 same web. So they kind of have this sub -social 00:46:20.630 --> 00:46:23.429 state where we don't really know why they do 00:46:23.429 --> 00:46:26.190 it or how they do it. And for me, it's more importantly, 00:46:26.349 --> 00:46:30.170 when do they decide to break up as a team? Because 00:46:30.170 --> 00:46:34.349 these females can be cannibalistic. So I assume 00:46:34.349 --> 00:46:36.929 that during the, that's a hypothesis I do want 00:46:36.929 --> 00:46:39.769 to test down the road. I assume that when the 00:46:39.769 --> 00:46:42.719 pheromone production, gears up for the warmer 00:46:42.719 --> 00:46:46.780 months from the mating season, that is also the 00:46:46.780 --> 00:46:48.960 signal for the females, like, okay, let's everyone 00:46:48.960 --> 00:46:52.480 go their own way, at least for a few centimeters 00:46:52.480 --> 00:46:56.719 in between us, rather than containing this web 00:46:56.719 --> 00:46:59.159 -sharing behavior. Okay, so we're approaching 00:46:59.159 --> 00:47:01.900 very quickly the last traditional infamous question. 00:47:02.039 --> 00:47:03.739 But before we get there, anything you want to 00:47:03.739 --> 00:47:05.820 call out on the podcast, perhaps upcoming work, 00:47:05.900 --> 00:47:08.260 projects, something that you just read that was 00:47:08.260 --> 00:47:12.280 cool, like anything, anything at all? Yeah, so 00:47:12.280 --> 00:47:16.639 I would call out to work from the lab where I'm 00:47:16.639 --> 00:47:18.559 now suited and where they found out how spiders 00:47:18.559 --> 00:47:20.960 smell, that they smell with their legs, with 00:47:20.960 --> 00:47:23.380 these tiny little hairs that was discovered pretty 00:47:23.380 --> 00:47:25.860 much a year ago. So it's really hot off the press 00:47:25.860 --> 00:47:28.599 and I'm really excited about finally knowing 00:47:28.599 --> 00:47:32.260 how spiders smell and taste. They have two different 00:47:32.260 --> 00:47:35.920 types of these hairs. They have hairs that have... 00:47:36.119 --> 00:47:38.940 tiny little pores through which these airborne 00:47:38.940 --> 00:47:41.659 molecules can pass and be detected that's how 00:47:41.659 --> 00:47:43.619 they smell and then they have these other pores 00:47:43.619 --> 00:47:45.639 which are tip pore where there's only an opening 00:47:45.639 --> 00:47:48.340 at the very tip and with that with those they 00:47:48.340 --> 00:47:51.659 can taste that i i find very very fascinating 00:47:51.659 --> 00:47:55.300 uh yeah other than that i just mentioned this 00:47:55.300 --> 00:47:57.679 age -related study that hopefully will come out 00:47:57.679 --> 00:48:01.320 soon and um yeah that's pretty much about the 00:48:01.320 --> 00:48:04.440 call -out section By all means, send me an email 00:48:04.440 --> 00:48:07.079 with the papers, and I'll make sure they're either 00:48:07.079 --> 00:48:10.420 in the show notes. I also have a website, whimsicalwavelengths 00:48:10.420 --> 00:48:12.960 .com, where I will also link to them, so that 00:48:12.960 --> 00:48:15.079 way people that are listening can find them if 00:48:15.079 --> 00:48:18.019 they're curious. But now, it is the final question 00:48:18.019 --> 00:48:22.880 of the interview. Your favorite science joke. 00:48:25.039 --> 00:48:26.599 Difficult one. I had to think about that one 00:48:26.599 --> 00:48:32.099 a while. So I thought, how does the male... Black 00:48:32.099 --> 00:48:35.840 Widow know that his date is going well. I have 00:48:35.840 --> 00:48:39.500 no idea. Well, if they had great chemistry, she 00:48:39.500 --> 00:48:41.980 will decide to wait until dessert to eat him. 00:48:44.519 --> 00:48:48.199 Oh, that was good. All right. Well, thank you 00:48:48.199 --> 00:48:50.260 so much for taking the time to hop on Whimsical 00:48:50.260 --> 00:48:52.599 Wavelength. I know it's late there, and it's 00:48:52.599 --> 00:48:55.940 just midday here, so thank you. Thank you for 00:48:55.940 --> 00:48:58.170 having me. All the best to you. Okay, that brings 00:48:58.170 --> 00:49:00.750 another Whimsical Wavelengths episode to a close. 00:49:01.730 --> 00:49:04.610 I know the audio was a bit echoey on that one, 00:49:04.670 --> 00:49:08.030 but we'll take it however it comes, because that 00:49:08.030 --> 00:49:09.969 discussion was pretty awesome. I learned a lot 00:49:09.969 --> 00:49:12.409 about spiders, and I hope you guys did too. So 00:49:12.409 --> 00:49:14.750 I'll see you again in two weeks with another 00:49:14.750 --> 00:49:31.230 award -winning episode. colors weave stories 00:49:31.230 --> 00:49:38.510 painting the sky swaying to rhythms as the galaxies 00:49:38.510 --> 00:49:39.730 fly by