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Spider phylogenomics: untangling the Spider Tree of Life

Overview of attention for article published in PeerJ, February 2016
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  • In the top 5% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (98th percentile)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (97th percentile)

Mentioned by

news
5 news outlets
blogs
10 blogs
twitter
168 X users
facebook
7 Facebook pages
wikipedia
10 Wikipedia pages
googleplus
2 Google+ users
reddit
1 Redditor

Citations

dimensions_citation
253 Dimensions

Readers on

mendeley
370 Mendeley
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Title
Spider phylogenomics: untangling the Spider Tree of Life
Published in
PeerJ, February 2016
DOI 10.7717/peerj.1719
Pubmed ID
Authors

Nicole L. Garrison, Juanita Rodriguez, Ingi Agnarsson, Jonathan A. Coddington, Charles E. Griswold, Christopher A. Hamilton, Marshal Hedin, Kevin M. Kocot, Joel M. Ledford, Jason E. Bond

Abstract

Spiders (Order Araneae) are massively abundant generalist arthropod predators that are found in nearly every ecosystem on the planet and have persisted for over 380 million years. Spiders have long served as evolutionary models for studying complex mating and web spinning behaviors, key innovation and adaptive radiation hypotheses, and have been inspiration for important theories like sexual selection by female choice. Unfortunately, past major attempts to reconstruct spider phylogeny typically employing the "usual suspect" genes have been unable to produce a well-supported phylogenetic framework for the entire order. To further resolve spider evolutionary relationships we have assembled a transcriptome-based data set comprising 70 ingroup spider taxa. Using maximum likelihood and shortcut coalescence-based approaches, we analyze eight data sets, the largest of which contains 3,398 gene regions and 696,652 amino acid sites forming the largest phylogenomic analysis of spider relationships produced to date. Contrary to long held beliefs that the orb web is the crowning achievement of spider evolution, ancestral state reconstructions of web type support a phylogenetically ancient origin of the orb web, and diversification analyses show that the mostly ground-dwelling, web-less RTA clade diversified faster than orb weavers. Consistent with molecular dating estimates we report herein, this may reflect a major increase in biomass of non-flying insects during the Cretaceous Terrestrial Revolution 125-90 million years ago favoring diversification of spiders that feed on cursorial rather than flying prey. Our results also have major implications for our understanding of spider systematics. Phylogenomic analyses corroborate several well-accepted high level groupings: Opisthothele, Mygalomorphae, Atypoidina, Avicularoidea, Theraphosoidina, Araneomorphae, Entelegynae, Araneoidea, the RTA clade, Dionycha and the Lycosoidea. Alternatively, our results challenge the monophyly of Eresoidea, Orbiculariae, and Deinopoidea. The composition of the major paleocribellate and neocribellate clades, the basal divisions of Araneomorphae, appear to be falsified. Traditional Haplogynae is in need of revision, as our findings appear to support the newly conceived concept of Synspermiata. The sister pairing of filistatids with hypochilids implies that some peculiar features of each family may in fact be synapomorphic for the pair. Leptonetids now are seen as a possible sister group to the Entelegynae, illustrating possible intermediates in the evolution of the more complex entelegyne genitalic condition, spinning organs and respiratory organs.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 168 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 370 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
United States 4 1%
Germany 2 <1%
France 1 <1%
Uruguay 1 <1%
Cuba 1 <1%
Australia 1 <1%
Colombia 1 <1%
India 1 <1%
United Kingdom 1 <1%
Other 6 2%
Unknown 351 95%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Ph. D. Student 69 19%
Student > Master 54 15%
Student > Bachelor 54 15%
Researcher 53 14%
Professor 18 5%
Other 61 16%
Unknown 61 16%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Agricultural and Biological Sciences 200 54%
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology 39 11%
Environmental Science 24 6%
Chemistry 5 1%
Social Sciences 4 1%
Other 24 6%
Unknown 74 20%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 195. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 19 March 2024.
All research outputs
#204,991
of 25,545,162 outputs
Outputs from PeerJ
#247
of 15,229 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#3,479
of 313,402 outputs
Outputs of similar age from PeerJ
#9
of 348 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,545,162 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 99th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 15,229 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 17.1. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 98% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 313,402 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 98% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 348 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 97% of its contemporaries.