Correlated evolution of traits can act synergistically to facilitate organism function. But, what happens when constraints exist on the evolvability of some traits, but not others? The orb web was a key innovation in the ...

Background: Interspecific coevolution is well described, but we know significantly less about how multiple traits coevolve within a species, particularly between behavioral traits and biomechanical properties of animals' ...

BACKGROUND:The origin and diversification patterns of lineages across the Indian Ocean islands are varied due to the interplay of the complex geographic and geologic island histories, the varying dispersal abilities of ...

The evolutionary diversification of spiders is attributed to spectacular innovations in silk. Spiders are unique in synthesizing many different kinds of silk, and using silk for a variety of ecological functions throughout ...

Evolutionary "dead ends" result from traits that are selectively advantageous in the short term but ultimately result in lowered diversification rates of lineages. In spiders, 23 species scattered across eight ...

Frequency of singletons 2013 species represented by single individuals 2013 is anomalously high in most large tropical arthropod surveys (average, 32%). We sampled 5965 adult spiders of 352 species (29% singletons) from 1 ...