I am a PhD candidate at the University of New South Wales, Sydney Australia, in the Evolution & Ecology Research Centre and the Centre for Ecosystem Science in the school of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences.
My work has a focus on spider behaviour and ecology, specifically that of the Sydney funnel-web spider.
PhD Candidate Caitlin Creak
Research
Do the funnel web spiders REALLY come out when it rains?
It’s a common Sydney saying, ‘be careful in all this rain, the funnel webs will be out!’ But we don’t actually have any solid data to support this.
The Sydney funnel web spider breeding season can begin as early as October, and end as late as May, with their peak typically around February. However, February and March are also the wettest seasons in Sydney. So is it just a coincidence that these two events line up?
My project, tracking male funnel web spiders will be able to investigate whether their movement and behavior is impacted by environments conditions.
In a hole in the ground there lived a spider
Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole … it was a spider-hole, and that means comfort.
Funnel web spiders (Atrax robustus) are apart of a group of spiders called Mygalomorphs, and these spiders have retained some primitive traits. These traits mean that spiders from this group need to live in a burrow in order to survive. In addition to this, Mygalomorph spiders are in most cases a long lived animal, with funnel web females estimated to live until 20 years old in the wild!
This means Sydneysiders more often than not, have eight legged neighbors, sharing a space with them for many many years. Yet, we don’t really know anything about them!
How is their burrow structured? Do they change its appearance throughout the seasons? Are all silks (web) created equally?
For this part of my PhD I will be investigating the questions above in order to educate the world on our hidden neighbors.
Publications & Media
References and Links to Papers
March 2, 2022
Scientist uses tiny trackers to keep tabs on funnel-web spiders
SYDNEY, March 2 (Reuters) - Some Sydney funnel-web spiders are scrambling into the Australian brush carrying special cargo: a telemetry tracker to study how far a mature male can travel at night and whether their movements are affected by the environment and weather.
May 13, 2022
Exoskeleton ageing and its relation to longevity and fecundity in female Australian leaf insects (Phyllium monteithi)
Senescence is a decline in reproduction and survival rate with advancing age resulting from deterioration of somatic tissues and systems throughout the body. Age-related somatic changes (somatic ageing) have been studied extensively in vertebrates but are less well known in other animals, including insects.
