Poster pitch PP

Temperature affects many physiological and biological processes in the body. Spiders are ectothermic organisms, so they are unable to regulate their body temperatures relative to their environment. As a result, changes in temperature can have a large impact on their metabolic rate and overall activity. Our project focuses on the effect of temperature on web production in P. phalangioides. To study this, we created three different environments with varying temperatures for spiders to live in and create webs. We had a cool environment that averaged at 11.6 degrees celsius, warm environment at 26.2 degrees celsius, and a control environment at 19.4 degrees celsius. We put three spiders, each in their own cup, in each environment and allowed them to produce webs for five days. We then compared the final weights of the webs in the different environments. It was concluded that spiders in cooler environments typically yielded lighter webs than spiders in warmer environments.