Very few people have thought about the body itself though. How it's mechanics, structure, posture and weight distribution will affect what gets to mechanosensors. So we decided to do just that. To think about the body...
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So basically while the sensors themselves aren't particularly tuned, the body gives the joints tuning. Tuning arises from the body's mass and mechanics rather than from sensor characteristics.
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Which would mean that as the spider changed the body, its weight, its posture, its position on the web it could change its own mechanosensory tuning!
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So we tested this. What happens when the spider puts on weight? After eating? Or becoming gravid?
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Turns out almost nothing happens to the tuning!!! Joint tuning is super-robust to body weight changes, so a hungry and a full spider can sense that courting male just as well as each other.
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And if they decide to eat him, that's a decision they made and likely not a sensory mistake!https://academic.oup.com/beheco/article-abstract/9/1/33/239370 …
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But posture, on the other hand, changes everything! Tuning at all the joints changes! Here's an example below...what happens in the crouching posture is tuning shifts up in frequency...pic.twitter.com/LTNFTKdPNz
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This shift may allow female to ignore low frequency vibrations, typically found in male courtship and in large prey items and to concentrate on smaller prey items. So basically females may be deployin this posture when they're hungry.
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Paying more 'attention' to small prey on the web! Or perhaps when winds blow and the whole web shakes. They may use this posture to prevent their mechanosensory system from being desensitized by overstimulation!
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So essentially we show that female black widow spiders can use posture to change the tuning of their mechanosensory system and can use it to direct attention to different signal components!
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