Lena Grinsted

The topic of my research is the general evolutionary mechanism involved in the transition to permanent sociality in spiders. Through comparitive studies of social and subsocial species from two distinctly different origins of sociality, within Stegodyphus (Eresidae) and Anelosimus (Theridiidae) , I try to identify similiar and dissimilar life history traits of social spiders. I am particularly interested in potential task differentiation and the partitioning of reproduction within social spider colonies.