Undergraduate Honors Thesis Projects

Date of Award

Spring 4-11-2025

Document Type

Honors Paper

Degree Name

Equine Pre-Veterinary/Pre-Graduate Studies-BS

Department

Biology & Earth Science

Advisor

Halard Lescinsky

First Committee Member

Halard Lescinsky

Second Committee Member

Bennett Grooms

Third Committee Member

Michele Acker

Keywords

spiders, webs, fluoxetine, pharmaceuticals

Subject Categories

Higher Education | Integrative Biology

Abstract

The arachnid central nervous system (CNS) functions in an analogous way to the human CNS, despite spiders not having a central brain. Previous studies on spider behavior and web formation have investigated the impacts of stimulants, depressants, sedatives, and hallucinogens, but the impacts of serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), such as fluoxetine are unknown. This study examined the impacts of caffeine, nicotine, ethanol, and fluoxetine on the web building behavior of Mangora maculata. Webs were characterized by 9 metrics: web entirety, size of web, radial angles, cell length, number of large holes, frequency of forking of spiral threads, radial angle consistency, cell length consistency, and consistency of cells between spiral 4 and 5. Spiders treated with stimulants spun webs that had low web entirety, small size, larger radial angles, and less overall consistency. Ethanol increased the number of large holes and the frequency of forking, while decreasing web entirety and average web size. Fluoxetine increased the web’s radial angle average and frequency of forking and yielded the most inconsistent webs. The observed impacts of drugs on web building point out two important implications. Since spiders have similar neural pathways and chemical receptors to humans, in the future spiders could be used as an animal model for human pharmaceutical research. In addition, since spiders are unable to build a complete web capable of capturing prey while impacted by psychoactive drugs, as pharmaceutical concentrations increase in the environment, it is important to monitor the web building and prey catching ability of spiders in nature to assure they are not negatively impacted.

Licensing Permission

Copyright, all rights reserved. Fair Use

Acknowledgement 1

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Acknowledgement 2

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castner_acc_report.pdf (144 kB)
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