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Spider webs don't rot easily and scientists may have figured out why
From spooky abandoned houses to dark forest corners, spider webs have an aura of eternal existence. In reality, the silk threads can last hours to weeks without rotting. That's because bacteria that would aid decomposition are unable to access the silk's nitrogen, a nutrient the microbes need for growth and reproduction, a new study suggests.
Previous research had hinted that spider webs might have antimicrobial properties that outright kill bacteria. But subjecting the webs of three spider species to four types of bacteria revealed that the spiders use a resist strategy instead, researchers report October 23 in the Journal of Experimental Biology.
The scientists "challenge something that has gone significantly overlooked," says Jeffery Yarger, a biochemist at Arizona State University in Tempe, who wasn't involved in the research. "We just assumed [the silk] has some kind of standard antimicrobial property."
Spiders spin strings of silk to trap food, wrap their eggs and rappel. Their silk webs can sport leaf debris for camouflage amidst tree canopies or leftover dead insects for a meal later. These bits and bobs lure bacteria and fungi involved in decomposition to the web, exposing the protein-rich web silks to the microbes.
"But [the microbes] don't seem to affect spider silk," says Dakota Piorkowski, a biologist at Tunghai University in Taichung, Taiwan.
The Citation quoted below states "Our results indicate that spider silk's resistance to bacterial degradation is likely due to bacteriostatic rather than antibacterial mechanisms when nitrogen is inaccessible."
Citations:
S. Zhang et al. Nitrogen unavailability helps to protect spider silk from bacterial growth. Journal of Experimental Biology. Vol. 222, October 23, 2019. doi: 10.1242/jeb.214981.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 04 2019, @06:10AM (4 children)
(Score: 3, Interesting) by opinionated_science on Monday November 04 2019, @10:29AM (3 children)
here is some anecdotal information from the spider on my kitchen window I am studying...
I was away for a while and when I got back I noticed the web had some gashes that hadn't been repair.
Closer inspection revealed that some of the web had become detached.
My hypothesis - in air conditioned houses, dehydrated silk before it has "set" is brittle and therefore can break easily.
Silk garments, however are "set"...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by HiThere on Monday November 04 2019, @05:02PM (2 children)
Actually, if the spider continues living there it will usually eat the web and spin a new one each day.
OTOH, in a dry climate, spider webs are ideally designed to dry out quickly. I don't think that's supposed to make them brittle, though. But spiders live a rather dangerous life, and some are transients. If the spider falls and needs to find a new place to live, it probably doesn't go back and eat the old web.
That said, I'm sure I've seen some old webs, so possibly what I said was only true of some species of spider. (I certainly can't see the communal spiders spinning a new web each day.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 04 2019, @07:58PM
What? Spiders eat their own web? Wow. Do you have a reputable citation? I see some ad-hoc things in Yahoo Answers and Quora, but would prefer something more reputable if it exists.
If spiders do eat their own webs, why when I see a big web in the corner of the room, it never changes... it just stays a big tangle for however long it takes for me to muster the energy to clear it? I admit that I don't pay close attention so if the strands themselves move I wouldn't notice, but I'd have expected not enough silk would build up in the first place.
(Score: 2) by opinionated_science on Tuesday November 05 2019, @12:13PM
nope, I counted the husks, and this is a "lazy" spider hasn't done as much damage as the aircon....
That said, it has caught a fair range of insects I might never perceive....