Spinning Solutions

City life comes with its challenges, especially the cacophony of traffic, crowds, and construction.

But while most people cope with noise pollution by cranking up the volume or investing in noise-canceling headphones, some spiders are spinning their own acoustic solutions.

In a new study, biologists Brandi Pessman and Eileen Hebets of the University of Nebraska–Lincoln found that funnel-weaving spiders can fine-tune their webs to cope with human-made vibrational noise.

These arachnids, the size of quarter coins and commonly found in both rural fields and urban corners, rely on their webs as a kind of external eardrum to detect prey, predators, and potential mates. But when blasted by the sound of traffic and machinery, they adjust their webwork.

“These spiders have come up with an incredible solution – they are able to use their webs as both a hearing aid and hearing plug,” Hebets told the New York Times.

In their experiments, the researchers collected 60 spiders from urban and rural environments and exposed them to either loud or quiet vibrational noise while they built webs over several nights.

“One of the most interesting things that we found is that urban and rural spiders are reacting differently when they’re put into a noisy environment,” Pessman explained in a statement.

Their findings showed that city arachnids spun quieter webs when bombarded with noise, dulling vibrations near the center funnel where they sit in wait – similar to padding on the walls to get some tranquility.

In contrast, rural spiders exposed to the same racket responded by building webs that amplified biologically important vibrations, as if turning up the volume to pick up on crucial cues in an unfamiliar noise storm.

The study highlights the spiders’ behavioral flexibility and opens avenues for exploring how other animals adapt their sensory reception, especially in noise-polluted environments.

Pessman added that future research will examine how exactly spiders change their webs, such as via silk tension or structural design.