Meeting Abstract
For millions of years, organisms have been sensing vibrations generated by the moving world around them. The vibrations that propagate through and along solid materials are often overlooked, but are an important information source for a wide variety of organisms, from worms and spiders to elephants and humans. The materials over which vibrational information is transmitted collectively form ‘vibration landscapes’. They are often heterogeneous, and impose physical constraints on information transfer, including energy loss, distortion and filtering. Animals can mitigate these physical constraints through adaptations in vibration generation and sensing to suit particular material types. Some may choose which materials to use for information transfer. One strategy that is employed by web-building spiders is to make their own vibration landscape for information transfer. Orb-weaving spiders can adjust the properties of their silk materials and web structures to modify vibrational information transfer. To achieve this, spiders have evolved a uniquely tunable material, dragline silk, which is used as a multifunctional material fibre for mechanical and sensing functions.
