[Past Projects]
Dr. Todd Blackledge and Angela Alicea-Serrano
Research Interests
- Spider Biology
- Biological Materials
My research focus on the mechanisms of adhesion of spider webs, to explore how environmental conditions affect its performance when trapping insects.
Research on the performance of sticky glue in webs has focused on testing its adhesiveness in controlled lab settings. This approach fails to understand the complexity of this natural system, and what this means to the ecology of orb-weaving spiders.
Research Questions
1) How does spider’s gluey silk sticks to insects?
2) Have spiders evolve cool and unique mechanisms to stick to the great variety of insect cuticles, like a less viscous glue to adhere to a hairy bee?
Research Approach
Biomechanics:
To use High speed video to quantify the behavior of glue droplets when interacting with different insect cuticles under a variety of ecological
relevant conditions.
Adhesive properties:
To use mechanical properties to understand performance of sticky silk when interacting with insect/prey cuticle by quantifying the work of
adhesion of the system.
Click here for more information about Dr. Blackledge’s research.