Dr Pedro De Souza Castanheira1, Dr Volker Framenau1

1Murdoch University, Murdoch, Australia

Biography:

My research aims to document the spider biodiversity through the study of their taxonomy and systematics, with a focus on orb-weaving spiders. I raise the public’s interest in environmental conservation by combining high standard scientific publications with science communication, as I consider that sharing the knowledge obtained with my research to be as important as the research itself. Career highlights include ABRS-funded grants, and two additional international grants at the American Museum of Natural History (Theodore Memorial Grant), and the Natural History Museum – United Kingdom (Synthesys+), and the organisation of the 1st Western Australian Colloquium of Arachnology (WACA).

Abstract:

The spider family Araneidae includes medium-sized to large orb-weavers with generally vertical webs. A recent multi-gene molecular study supported a paraphyletic ‘Araneinae’, the largest subfamily to date, indicating the existence of numerous previously unrecognised clades at subfamily level containing Australian species along the Araneidae tree of life. Following this study, we conducted taxonomic revisions on a variety of genera of the Australian Araneidae fauna. They mainly focused on the informally termed ‘backobourkiine’ clade, many species of which were historically misplaced in the genera Araneus and Eriophora. The backobourkiines are the most speciose and most abundant group of orb-weaving spiders in Australia and we now recognise 90 species in nine genera. They include those species commonly referred to as Garden Orb-weavers and are found primarily in Australia and its neighbours: South-east Asia, the Pacific and New Zealand. Some Australian araneids, such as Trichonephila (Golden Orb-weavers), Phonognatha (Leaf-curling spiders), Paraplectanoides and the recently described Venomius, are located basally in the Araneidae phylogeny, and thereby play an important role in the contentious delimitation of Araneidae as a whole.

Our presentation summarises the current systematic and taxonomic status of the Australian Araneidae fauna, focusing on our recent research on the backobourkiines, including results of detailed phylogenetic analyses based on genomic data. Our results aim to clarify the relationships within the group, but also to propose hypothesis on supraspecific taxa (i.e. genera subfamilies) for future studies on the family in the country.