Dr Keith Lyons

Word of the day is ‘swullocking’, from 19th-century East Anglian dialect: sultry, sweltering, and sudiferous (sweat-inducing).

#BiologyLetters Spiders use different traits to capture prey, including webs or fangs to restrain prey before delivering their paralytic venom. But is there a trade off between venom potency and body size or silk use in prey capture? royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/... #ecology #evolution

Watch Keith Lyons' seminar about his recent #BiologyLetters paper 'Spider venom potency exhibits phylogenetic prey specificity but does not trade-off with body size or silk use in prey capture': cassyni.com/events/Jcwo8... #ecology #evolution

Big thank you to the media crew @uniofgalway.bsky.social
for their assistance in spreading the good word also!

The link to our manuscript and accompanying talk can be found here doi.org/10.52843/cas.... If you want direct link to manuscript use this link doi.org/10.1098/rsbl....

Big thanks to all media outlets that have covered our recently published work on spider venom potency thus far! I have been blow away by the interest and support everyone has showed. Grateful to @drivetime.bsky.social @wlrfm.bsky.social and
Galway Bay FM for having me on their shows on Thursday.

Relative size matters: eyespots on large insect prey deter small #arthropod predators #ProcB royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/... #Behaviour #Cognition

Spider venom potency exhibits phylogenetic prey specificity but does not trade-off with body size or silk use in prey capture | Biology Letters Spiders employ a diverse range of predator traits, including potent venoms, complex silk-hunting strategies and mechanical strength coupled with larger body sizes to capture prey. This trait diversity, along with the quantifiable nature of venom potency, ...

#Spider venom potency exhibits phylogenetic prey specificity but does not trade-off with body size or silk use in prey capture royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

Harvard researchers devastated as Trump team cuts nearly 1,000 grants Nature talks with scientists about an uncertain future as the US government lays siege to their university.

As the US government slashes Harvard’s funding, Nature has learnt that researchers at the university have lost nearly 1,000 grants worth more than US$2.4 billion.

https://go.nature.com/4jg8Sxa

Absolutely fascinating stuff!!!!

@uniofgalway.bsky.social @healyke.bsky.social @cassyni.bsky.social

Doi for our manuscript can be found in CASSYNI alongside our seminar, using the doi link above.

Along with our research on spider venom potency published in Biology Letters, we were kindly asked to prepare a seminar discussing the manuscript for @royalsocietypublishing.org/@cassyni.bsky.social's "Ecology and Evolution Seminar Series" doi.org/10.52843/cassyni.slp5xv. It's free to watch! Enjoy!

Blurred background is a colour photograph of two people (on the left one in checked red/blue/white shirt and glasses, on the right one in blue shirt with blue glasses) looking at specimens in jars on shelves. In the foreground in focus is a large old fashioned looking specimen jar with an unidentifiable specimen within it. Over this the title of the podcast 'The "Perfect" Specimen is written in white text. In the top left hand corner the Natural History Museum logo appears in white.

Are you looking for a distraction? Do you love natural history and museum specimens? Join @joshlukedavis.com and I for "The 'Perfect' Specimen" - an irreverent look at the natural world through via some of the @nhm-london.bsky.social's 80 million specimens, and increasingly random adjectives...

Finally, we tested how venom yield scaled with body size, finding allometric scaling close to 0.75, suggesting that metabolic costs are one of the main drivers of venom production, similar to what was found previously in snakes (onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...).

We also tested for evolutionary trade-offs between venom potency, body size and silk use in prey capture but find no relationship between either size or silk use with venom potency which was unexpected and is both supported and contested by other studies in the literature.

By comparing over 70 species we show that spider venoms have evolved to be phylogenetically prey-specific by testing how venom potency changed when tested on animals closely related to a spiders diet compared to when tested on species more distantly related to their diet.

#AcademicSky #Spiders

Spider venom potency exhibits phylogenetic prey specificity but does not trade-off with body size or silk use in prey capture | Biology Letters Spiders employ a diverse range of predator traits, including potent venoms, complex silk-hunting strategies and mechanical strength coupled with larger body sizes to capture prey. This trait diversity...

Our latest research on the factors influencing spider venom potency has been published in Biology Letters! doi.org/10.1098/rsbl... Big thank you to my supervisors Dr @healyke.bsky.social and Dr Michel Dugon
along with the media team @uniofgalway.bsky.social
for spreading the word!

Spider venom potency exhibits phylogenetic prey specificity but does not trade-off with body size or silk use in prey capture | Biology Letters Spiders employ a diverse range of predator traits, including potent venoms, complex silk-hunting strategies and mechanical strength coupled with larger body sizes to capture prey. This trait diversity, along with the quantifiable nature of venom potency, ...

Delighted to see our latest paper on the macroecology of spider venoms led by @keithlnotions.bsky.social published today in Biology letters. royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/epdf/10....

Renewal of NIH grants linked to more innovative results, study finds Nature - Survey of hundreds of scientists’ work suggests that cutting off funding disrupts focus and reduces the novelty of research.

Innovation takes time

US scientists who received renewals from the NIH over the past four decades produced more novel research than those who didn’t
https://go.nature.com/44s6cc5

Revealed: the unusual mathematics that gives rose petals their shape The pointy edges of petals rely on a type of geometric feedback never before seen in nature.

The pointy edges of petals rely on a type of geometric feedback never before seen in nature.

https://go.nature.com/3GuL0bw

🚨 Worm tube hermit, people 🦀 🚨

I've finally made the move to Bluesky! Will likely work off both Bluesky and Twitter(X) for now but if you want to see my previous posts (going as far back as Nov 2019!) here is my Twitter(X) account: x.com/KeithLNotions, also with the @KeithLNotions handle. #movetobluesky #betterlatethannever