Spiders are one of the most diverse clades of multicellular life on earth, and their success has been attributed to several key genomic features, such as weaving silk, deploying various forms of venom, and being able to metabolize many types of prey. We have created a database of whole genome information from ten spider species from across major branches of the spider tree of life to help contextualize the genomic events occurring along the evolutionary history of the spider clade. Genes from these ten spiders were clustered into gene families which were used to detect duplications, losses, and evidence of selection (dN/dS) along the branches of these spiders' phylogeny. These results also allow us to weigh in on a contentious taxonomic placement for one of these spiders, the Uloborus diversus, which we found to be paraphyletic with other orb-web weaving spiders. One future applications of this database will involve phenotype reconstruction, with the goal of forging a genotype to phenotype map. / Biology

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Matryoshka is a poetry collection that inhabits the space between danger and desire. The poems are largely voice-driven and confessional, sprouting from a speaker who is somehow ruthlessly honest and deceptively evasive at the same time. She covets the domestic only to set it on fire. She runs for comfort and greets the comfortable with a knife. In the beginning of the collection, we see a speaker navigating her relationships with others. The poems in section one are seeped with intense longing and physical desire. In section two, we see the speaker turn her gaze inward and are met with a raw exploration of the self; a revelry of bad decision making, self-deception, and complicated sexuality. The collection leaves the reader curious and comfort-seeking. / Master of Fine Arts

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Background: Taxonomic descriptions are traditionally composed in natural language and published in a format that cannot be directly used by computers. The Exploring Taxon Concepts (ETC) project has been developing a set of web-based software tools that convert morphological descriptions published in telegraphic style to character data that can be reused and repurposed. This paper introduces the first semi-automated pipeline, to our knowledge, that converts morphological descriptions into taxon-character matrices to support systematics and evolutionary biology research. We then demonstrate and evaluate the use of the ETC Input Creation - Text Capture - Matrix Generation pipeline to generate body part measurement matrices from a set of 188 spider morphological descriptions and report the findings. Results: From the given set of spider taxonomic publications, two versions of input (original and normalized) were generated and used by the ETC Text Capture and ETC Matrix Generation tools. The tools produced two corresponding spider body part measurement matrices, and the matrix from the normalized input was found to be much more similar to a gold standard matrix hand-curated by the scientist co-authors. Special conventions utilized in the original descriptions (e.g., the omission of measurement units) were attributed to the lower performance of using the original input. The results show that simple normalization of the description text greatly increased the quality of the machine-generated matrix and reduced edit effort. The machine-generated matrix also helped identify issues in the gold standard matrix. Conclusions: ETC Text Capture and ETC Matrix Generation are low-barrier and effective tools for extracting measurement values from spider taxonomic descriptions and are more effective when the descriptions are self-contained. Special conventions that make the description text less self contained challenge automated extraction of data from biodiversity descriptions and hinder the automated reuse of the published knowledge. The tools will be updated to support new requirements revealed in this case study.

No livro The Insect Societies, Wilson propôs categorias de socialidade que foram consideradas uma unificação histórica da terminologia no estudo do comportamento social. Desde então, muitos novos padrões comportamentais foram descritos, mas não podiam ser encaixados em nenhuma das categorias disponíveis, prejudicando o consenso em torno dessa classificação bem estabelecida. Novas classificações gerais tentaram contornar as limitações mostradas pela categorização de Wilson, mas com pouco sucesso. Entre as proposições, algumas mantêm a forma de categorização discreta usando características consideradas importantes pelos autores que as propuseram; outros avançam em um modelo quantitativo de caracterização da socialidade. A análise de Carnap sobre os tipos de conceitos em ciência pode nos ajudar a avançar nesta discussão. Sua distinção entre conceitos qualitativos (classificatórios e comparativos) e conceitos quantitativos é usada aqui como base epistemológica para analisar o desenvolvimento das mudanças conceituais e classificações de socialidade propostas. A abordagem de Carnap reforça a proposta de superar a dicotomia entre espécies sociais e sociais a favor de um modelo de gradientes de socialidade. Concluímos que uma nova métrica de socialidade deve ser construída, usando características que não são arbitrárias, mas sim evolutivamente significativas e que permita a comparação entre o comportamento social de todas as espécies. Nesse sentido, a análise de redes sociais tem sido usada para descrever a estrutura de diferentes sociedades, características da estrutura das redes são comparáveis entre grupos e espécies. Aranhas sociais se constituem como um ótimo objeto de estudo, pois apresentam diferentes níveis de socialidade em diferentes níveis taxonômicos. Nós, portanto, desenvolvemos uma abordagem de redes sociais para quantificar a socialidade em colônias de Anelosimus eximius e descrever sua estrutura. Somado a isso, e considerando que a divisão do trabalho é uma característica importante das espécies eussociais, nós testamos se os indivíduos nas colônias se especializam em tarefas e se organizam em grupos em diferentes contextos sociais. Além disso, avaliamos quais os efeitos do tamanho de grupo nesta organização social. Indivíduos de A. eximius apresentam uma organização em grupos nos diferentes contextos sociais, e as colônias apresentam uma baixa, porém significativa, taxa de especialização em tarefas. Os grupos variam entre contextos, mas são frequentemente similares em contextos ativos. Em colônias menores, os indivíduos não apresentam grupos consistentes, todos os individuos parecem necessários para as tarefas. Complexidade social definida como especialização e formação de grupos dentro da colônia parece ser uma métrica útil de socialidade, permitindo a comparação de uma gama de espécies. O tamanho dos grupos tem que ser levado em conta, porque indivíduos aparentam ser sensíveis às necessidades da colônia / In the book The Insect Societies, Wilson proposed categories of sociality that were considered a landmark unification of terminology in the study of social behavior. Since then, many new behavioral patterns were described, but they could not be fitted in any of the available categories, undermining the consensus around that wellestablished classification. New general classifications tried to circumvent the limitations shown by Wilsons categorization, but with little success. Among the propositions, some maintain the form of discrete categorization using features considered important by the authors who proposed them; others advance a quantitative model of characterization of sociality. Carnap\'s analysis of types of concepts can help moving forward in this discussion. His distinction between qualitative concepts (classificatory and comparative) and quantitative concepts is used here as an epistemological basis for analyzing the development of the proposed conceptual changes and classifications of sociality. Carnaps approach reinforces the proposal of overcoming the dichotomy between eusocial and social species in favor of a model of sociality gradients. We conclude that a new metric of sociality should be built, using characteristics that are non-arbitrary, evolutionarily meaningful, and amenable to comparing social behavior between all species. In this context, social network analysis is currently used as a means to describe social structures in animal systems, and the network structure characteristics can be compared across groups of different composition and species. Social spiders are good models to study social behavior because they present different levels of sociality in different taxonomic levels. We develop a social network approach to quantifying sociality in Anelosimus eximius colonies and describe its structure. In addition, since division of labor is an important feature of eusociality, we evaluated individual specialization in colony tasks and tested for the existence of groups of individuals through different social contexts. We also evaluated the effects of colony size on such organization. A. eximius present a organization in groups in different social contexts, and colonies exhibit a low, but significant, specialization rate in particular tasks. Group composition among spiders was flexible but frequently similar in active tasks. Individuals in smaller colonies did not form consistent groups; all individuals seem necessary to perform the tasks. The evaluation of social complexity in terms of specialization and group organization seems to be a useful metric, allowing the comparison of a wide range of species. Colony size should be an important qualifier of this metric, since individual behavior appears sensitive to colony needs

O envenenamento por aranhas Loxosceles pode resultar dois tipos de manifestações clínicas: o loxoscelismo cutâneo e o sistêmico. Hemólise, agregação plaquetária, inflamação persistente, falência renal e morte podem ser observados em pacientes com manifestações sistêmicas. Apesar da pouca incidência de vítimas com falência renal, esta é a principal causa de óbito, ocorrendo principalmente em crianças. O principal fator do veneno da aranha Loxosceles, responsável pelas manifestações locais e sistêmicas, é a esfingomielinase D. O presente estudo teve como objetivo investigar a ação tóxica do veneno de L. intermedia e das SMases D sobre células renais humanas, o possível envolvimento de metaloproteases endógenas e do sistema complemento neste processo. Os resultados obtidos mostram que tanto o veneno, como a SMase D, foram capazes de provocar morte celular, a qual foi relacionada a ativação de metaloproteases de matriz extracelular, MMP-2 e MMP-9 e, ainda, por ação lítica do complemento, após clivagem do MCP, por ação de metaloproteases da família das adamlisinas. A remoção de MCP permitiu ativação do Complemento, como determinado pelo aumento da deposição de C3 e C4 e da morte celular. Também foi observado um aumento na deposição do fator H e da properdina, mas não de C4bp após a tratamento das células com veneno/ SMase D. Diminuição na expressão das moléculas de superfície MHC-I, <font face=\"Symbol\">b2 microglobulina, EPCR e EGFR foi observada e está relacionada com a ativação de metaloproteases da família das adamlisinas. A expressão de outros reguladores do complemento, como DAF e CD59, não foi afetada pelo tratamento. Em conjunto, tais resultados mostram que o veneno e a SMase D induzem aumento na expressão/ativação de metaloproteases endógenas, operantes nos eventos de morte celular por apoptose e necrose, os quais podem ter um papel relevante para os danos renais presentes no loxoscelismo sistêmico humano. / Envenomation by Loxosceles spider can result two forms of clinical manifestations: cutaneous and systemic loxoscelism. Haemolysis, platelet aggregation, inflammation persistent, renal failure and death can be observed in patients with systemic manifestations. Despite the low incidence of renal failure victims, this is the main cause of death, occurring mainly in children. The sphingomyelinase D is the main factor in Loxosceles spider venom responsible for local and systemic manifestations This study aimed to investigate the toxicity of the L. intermedia venom and SMase D on human kidney cells and the possible involvement of endogenous metalloproteinases and complement this process. Results showed that venom and SMase D were able to cause cell death, which was related to activation of extracellular matrix metalloproteases, MMP-2 and MMP-9 and also by lytic action of complement, after MCP cleavage by the action of the family of metalloproteases adamlisins. The removal of MCP, by action of the venom/ SMase D, allowes activation of complement, as determined by increases deposition of C3 and C4 and cell death. There was also an increases in deposition of properdin and factor H, but not C4bp, after treatment of cells with venom/ SMase D. decreased expression of surface molecules MHC-I, <font face=\"Symbol\">b2 microglobulin, EPCR and EGFR was observed after incubation of the renal cells with venom or SMase D and is related to activation of metalloproteinases family adamlisins. The expression of others complement regulators such as DAF and CD59 was not affected by treatment. Together, theses results show that the venom and SMase D induce increased expression/ activation of endogenous metalloproteases, operating in the event of cell death by apoptosis and necrosis, which may have an important role for the kidney injury loxoscelism in the human system.

Previous publications comprise main text of thesis / Includes bibliographical references / 1 v. (various pagings) : / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / Thesis (M.D.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of Pathology, 1988