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Genetic variances and cross‐sex genetic correlations in spider personalities
In a new publication, we assess genetic variances and cross‐sex genetic correlations of two personality traits, aggression and activity,...
Aug 23, 2019


Transcriptome of Darwin’s bark spider silk glands predicts tougher silk
Darwin's bark spider builds the largest webs made of the toughest silk. We now highlight a novel silk gene transcript and unusually long...
Jul 25, 2019


Spider Welfare
Spiders with around 48,000 recorded species are major terrestrial predators and thus crucially important for ecosystem functioning. They...
Jul 8, 2019


The Geography of Slovenia
This is an unusual publication for EZ lab - a chapter about biodiversity of Slovenia in general. Link
Jul 8, 2019


Entelegyne spider reproduction system needs redefinition
Our understanding of spider reproductive biology is hampered by the vast anatomical diversity and difficulties associated with its study....
Jul 7, 2019


Smaller male spiders are not faster climbers
Among terrestrial animals, spiders exhibit the most extreme cases of difference in size between males and females. Female spiders are...
May 28, 2019


Golden orbweavers ignore biological rules
Golden orbweavers ignore biological rules: phylogenomic and comparative analyses unravel a complex evolution of sexual size dimorphism...
Dec 4, 2018


Evolutionary history and biogeography of Deinopis
From Gondwana to GAARlandia: Evolutionary history and biogeography of ogre‐faced spiders (Deinopis) In our new paper we explore the...
Oct 2, 2018


Rivers and mountains drive diversification of Liphistiidae
Geological events such as the formation of rivers and mountains can drive diversification. We here test vicariant hypotheses using the...
Jul 16, 2018


A new species of Stenasellus from Iran
A new stenasellid isopod is described from Tashan Cave, Khuzestan Province, south-west Iran, belonging to the genus Stenasellus Dollfus,...
Jun 18, 2018


Cross-sex genetic correlation & SSD in spiders
Males and females are often subjected to different selection pressures for homologous traits, resulting in sex-specific optima. Because...
Jan 5, 2018


Postdoc position at University of Akron
The laboratories of Todd Blackledge and Ali Dhinojwala, two of our collaborators on the evolution of silk material properties in bark...
Nov 9, 2017


4 new species of "primitive" Qiongthela spiders
The primitively segmented spiders were underexplored until recently. Here, we describe 4 new species from the trapdoor spider genus...
Nov 8, 2017


Revision of the primitively segmented Ryuthela spiders
Here, we provide a taxonomic revision of the liphistiid genus Ryuthela Haupt, 1983, endemic to Ryukyu archipelago, Japan, through a...
Sep 11, 2017


Assessing groundwater habitat pollution of black proteus
Karst areas are among the world’s most vulnerable landscapes to environmental impacts. Most of pollution in karst areas is due to...
Aug 8, 2017


Behavioral variation and plasticity enable survival in urban environments
Urbanization has drastically changed biodiversity patterns. While the majority of species cope poorly with urban habitats, some species...
Jul 27, 2017


Major advance in study of spider silk genes!
Researchers from USA and Slovenia have made a major advance with the largest-ever study of spider silk genes! As they report today in an...
May 1, 2017


Scientists overcome the inaccessibility of cave habitats through molecular genetic approach
An international group of scientists has used a novel highly sensitive method for detection of environmental DNA in groundwater to extend...
Mar 28, 2017


Rapid inventory using COI + ITS2 + morphologhy
In the last EZ publication of 2016, we investigated how classical DNA barcoding (using the COI locus) compares to rapid DNA barcoding...
Dec 25, 2016


Pre-copulatory sexual cannibalism in virgin wolf spiders
Pre-copulatory sexual cannibalism (Pre-SC), where females attack and consume courting males, is considered an extreme case of sexual ...
Dec 7, 2016
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