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Heterogeneity Studies of Cyrtophora citricola in Puerto Rico
Author(s) -
Cardona Jaime,
Arroyo Nancy,
Asencio Carmen
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.27.1_supplement.lb183
Subject(s) - spider , organism , biology , ecology , dna barcoding , zoology , genetics
Cyrtophora citricola is a spider originally from Africa. It has been found in Colombia (1996), Haiti (1998), Florida, U.S. (2000), Cuba (2003), and more recently in Puerto Rico (2008). It has become an important organism for research due to its impact in agriculture. Recent studies have questioned whether this organism can be classified as only deleterious or whether it presents beneficial aspects for agricultural use. It is not known whether plants that serve as host are damaged by the spider or by the presence of the dense web. More than one spider can be found in a single spider web, a condition that is rare for spiders who exhibit a natural low tolerance level for other organisms, including those of their own species. In order to better understand this organism and its behavior, we decided to verify parental relationship between all the specimens of the same gender of C. citricola found in a single web. Female spiders genomic DNA was successfully extracted. A 710 bp fragment from the cytochrome c oxidase subunit 1 gene (CO1) was amplified by PCR. This gene is highly conserved making it suitable for heterogeneity studies among the different gender spiders collected from the same web and from different regions in Puerto Rico.