Samantha Straus

Samantha Straus

Oct 05, 2016

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About This Project

Sociality in spiders is extremely rare, but it has evolved several times. This begs the question: why be social? I aim to answer this by using social spiders found in Ecuador. I will determine the benefits and costs of sociality by measuring prey capture rates and parasite loads for four different species with varying levels of sociality. As social beings ourselves, we can understand social behaviour and cooperation by studying these unique spiders.

Blast off!

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