Posture controls mechanical tuning in the black widow spider mechanosensory system

Abstract

Spiders rely on mechanical vibration sensing for sexual signalling, prey capture and predator evasion. The sensory organs underlying vibration detection, called slit sensilla, resemble cracks in the spiders exoskeleton, and are distributed all over the spider body. Those crucial to sensing web- and other substrate-borne vibrations are called lyriform organs and are densely distributed around leg joints. It has been shown that forces that cause bending at leg joints also activate these lyriform organs. Little is known of how the biomechanics of the body of a freely-suspended spider in its natural posture interact with vibrations introduced into the body and how this affects vibration perception. Female black widow spiders, in particular, have a striking body-form; their long thin legs support a large pendulous abdomen. Here, we show that in their natural posture, the large abdominal mass of black widow females, interacts with the spring-like behaviour of their leg joints and determines the mechanical behaviour of different leg joints. Furthermore, we find that adopting different body postures enables females to alter both the level and tuning of the mechanical input to lyriform organs. Therefore, we suggest that posture may be used to flexibly and reversibly focus attention to different classes or components of web vibration. Postural effects thus emphasize the dynamic loop of interactions between behaviour and perception, i.e. between brain and body.