Spider Webs Don’t Rot Easily and Scientists May Have Figured Out Why
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Spider webs don't rot easily and scientists may have figured out why
Fromspooky abandoned houses to dark forest corners, spider webs have an aura ofeternal existence. In reality, the silk threads can last hours to weeks withoutrotting. That's because bacteria that would aid decomposition are unable toaccess the silk's nitrogen, a nutrient the microbes need for growth andreproduction, a new study suggests.
Previous researchhad hinted that spider webs might have antimicrobial properties that outright killbacteria. But subjecting the webs of three spider species to four types of bacteriarevealed that the spiders use a resist strategy instead, researchers report October 23 inthe Journal of Experimental Biology.
Thescientists "challenge something that has gone significantly overlooked," saysJeffery Yarger, a biochemist at Arizona State University in Tempe, who wasn'tinvolved in the research. "We just assumed [the silk] has some kind of standardantimicrobial property."
Spiders spin stringsof silk to trap food, wrap their eggs and rappel. Their silk webs can sportleaf debris for camouflage amidst tree canopies or leftover dead insects for ameal later. These bits and bobs lure bacteria and fungi involved indecomposition to the web, exposing the protein-rich web silks to the microbes.
"But [the microbes]don't seem to affect spider silk," says Dakota Piorkowski, a biologist at TunghaiUniversity in Taichung, Taiwan.
The Citation quoted below states "Our results indicate that spider silk's resistance to bacterial degradation is likely due to bacteriostatic rather than antibacterial mechanisms when nitrogen is inaccessible."
Citations:
S. Zhang et al. Nitrogen unavailability helps to protect spider silk from bacterial growth. Journal of Experimental Biology. Vol. 222, October 23, 2019. doi: 10.1242/jeb.214981.
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