Skip to main content
bioRxiv
  • Home
  • About
  • Submit
  • ALERTS / RSS
Advanced Search
New Results

An Observational Study of Ballooning in Large Spiders: Nanoscale Multi-Fibers Enable Large Spiders’ Soaring Flight

View ORCID ProfileMoonsung Cho, View ORCID ProfilePeter Neubauer, Christoph Fahrenson, Ingo Rechenberg
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/206334
Moonsung Cho
1Technische Universität Berlin, Institut für Bionik und Evolutionstechnik, Ackerstraße 76 / ACK 1, 13355 Berlin, Germany
2Technische Universität Berlin, Institut für Biotechnologie, Ackerstraße 76 / ACK 24, 13355 Berlin, Germany
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • ORCID record for Moonsung Cho
  • For correspondence: m.cho@campus.tu-berlin.de
Peter Neubauer
2Technische Universität Berlin, Institut für Biotechnologie, Ackerstraße 76 / ACK 24, 13355 Berlin, Germany
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • ORCID record for Peter Neubauer
Christoph Fahrenson
3Technische Universität Berlin, Zentraleinrichtung Elektronenmikroskopie, Straße des 17. Juni 135, 10623 Berlin, Germany
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Ingo Rechenberg
1Technische Universität Berlin, Institut für Bionik und Evolutionstechnik, Ackerstraße 76 / ACK 1, 13355 Berlin, Germany
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • Abstract
  • Full Text
  • Info/History
  • Metrics
  • Supplementary material
  • Preview PDF
Loading

Abstract

The physical mechanism of aerial dispersal of spiders, “ballooning behavior,” is still unclear because of the lack of serious scientific observations and experiments. Therefore, as a first step in clarifying the phenomenon, we studied the ballooning behavior of relatively large spiders (heavier than 5 mg) in nature. Additional wind tunnel tests to identify ballooning silks were implemented in the laboratory. From our observation, it seems obvious that spiders actively evaluate the condition of the wind with their front leg (leg I) and wait for the preferable wind condition for their ballooning takeoff. In the wind tunnel tests, as yet unknown physical properties of ballooning fibers (length, thickness and number of fibers) were identified. Large spiders, 16–20 mg Xysticus species, spun 50 to 60 nanoscale fibers, with a diameter of 121 to 323 nm. The length of these threads was 3.22 ± 1.31 m (N = 22). These physical properties of ballooning fibers can explain the ballooning of large spiders with relatively light updrafts, 0.1–0.5 m s-1, which exist in a light breeze of 1.5–3.3 m s-1. Additionally, in line with previous research on turbulence in atmospheric boundary layers and from our wind measurements, it is hypothesized that spiders use the ascending air current for their aerial dispersal, the “ejection” regime, which is induced by hairpin vortices in the atmospheric boundary layer turbulence. This regime is highly correlated with lower wind speeds. This coincides well with the fact that spiders usually balloon when the wind speed is lower than 3 m s-1.

Copyright 
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license.
Back to top
PreviousNext
Posted March 26, 2018.
Download PDF

Supplementary Material

Email

Thank you for your interest in spreading the word about bioRxiv.

NOTE: Your email address is requested solely to identify you as the sender of this article.

Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
An Observational Study of Ballooning in Large Spiders: Nanoscale Multi-Fibers Enable Large Spiders’ Soaring Flight
(Your Name) has forwarded a page to you from bioRxiv
(Your Name) thought you would like to see this page from the bioRxiv website.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Share
An Observational Study of Ballooning in Large Spiders: Nanoscale Multi-Fibers Enable Large Spiders’ Soaring Flight
Moonsung Cho, Peter Neubauer, Christoph Fahrenson, Ingo Rechenberg
bioRxiv 206334; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/206334
Digg logo Reddit logo Twitter logo CiteULike logo Facebook logo Google logo Mendeley logo
Citation Tools
An Observational Study of Ballooning in Large Spiders: Nanoscale Multi-Fibers Enable Large Spiders’ Soaring Flight
Moonsung Cho, Peter Neubauer, Christoph Fahrenson, Ingo Rechenberg
bioRxiv 206334; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/206334

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero
  • Tweet Widget
  • Facebook Like
  • Google Plus One

Subject Area

  • Zoology
  • Biophysics
Subject Areas
All Articles
  • Animal Behavior and Cognition (2536)
  • Biochemistry (4983)
  • Bioengineering (3487)
  • Bioinformatics (15242)
  • Biophysics (6914)
  • Cancer Biology (5404)
  • Cell Biology (7756)
  • Clinical Trials (138)
  • Developmental Biology (4543)
  • Ecology (7162)
  • Epidemiology (2059)
  • Evolutionary Biology (10240)
  • Genetics (7522)
  • Genomics (9802)
  • Immunology (4869)
  • Microbiology (13250)
  • Molecular Biology (5151)
  • Neuroscience (29496)
  • Paleontology (203)
  • Pathology (838)
  • Pharmacology and Toxicology (1468)
  • Physiology (2143)
  • Plant Biology (4759)
  • Scientific Communication and Education (1013)
  • Synthetic Biology (1339)
  • Systems Biology (4015)
  • Zoology (770)