Macarena González

• PhD
• Nivel III at Clemente Estable Biological Research Institute

Changes in the animals’ environment often impact on their behavior and the way they communicate. Particularly in spiders, living on webs or not is a determining factor. While the Lycosidae family predominantly comprises wandering spiders, only a few species inhabit webs. Aglaoctenus oblongus (C.L. Koch 1847) challenges this norm, as it has been fou...

Ballooning is a mechanism of aerial dispersal present in some groups of spiders. By releasing silken threads that are blown by the wind, spiders can travel long distances through the air. Aglaoctenus lagotis is a wolf spider that lives its entire life associated with a funnel‐web, despite the wandering habit that characterizes species in this famil...

The family Lycosidae is one of the spider families with the greatest diversity of species and with varied and striking strategies. Studies on Neotropical wolf spiders have contributed new and valuable information to the field of sexual selection for several decades, having discovered cases that differ markedly from previously known patterns, not on...

Species are the fundamental category and the key to formulate conservation efforts. DNA and ecological niche modeling have become valuable tools for species delimitation. Wolf spiders include few web-living species, such as Aglaoctenus lagotis (Holmberg, 1876), a priority species for conservation in Uruguay. Behavioral and body coloration patterns...

RESUMEN Schizocosa malitiosa y Aglaoctenus lagotis son dos arañas lobo (Lycosidae) que habitan praderas y montes de Uruguay. Mientras S. malitiosa tiene hábito de vida errante, A. lagotis es sedentaria, y vive en tela. En este estudio, nos propusimos evaluar experimentalmente el comportamiento de captura de ambas especies en un sustrato "conocido"...

Arthropods inhabiting floodplains have to cope with regular cycles of wet and dry conditions. Allocosa senex and Allocosa marindia are two sympatric and synchronic sand‐dwelling wolf spiders that construct burrows along South American coasts and are subject to periodic floods. Our objective was to study tolerance to immersion and describe the behav...

'Such mother, such spiderlings': offspring of Uruguayan wolf spiders (Araneae: Lycosidae). This study collects information about number of egg sacs and spiderlings in 14 Uruguayan lycosid species. It evaluates the relationship of these traits with female body characteristics and copulation duration. A positive relationship was found between female...

Abstract. In spiders, intersex communication during courtship is essential to avoid the risks of cannibalism due to lack of specific recognition. Parabatinga brevipes (Keyserling, 1891) is a Ctenidae spider with a distribution from Colombia to Uruguay. This study is the first to describe the sexual behavior of P. brevipes, and the fourth reported i...

Spider webs can be invaded by other species of spiders. While the majority involve spiders that build webs of their own, there are reports of wandering spiders invading webs. Most wolf spiders (Lycosidae) do not build webs and web invasion behaviour has never been reported in this family. Here, we report wandering wolf spiders invading webs of Agla...

The sexual behaviour of the Neotropical wolf spider Lycosa inornata (Araneae: Lycosidae), with comments on maternal behaviour Carlos A. Toscano-Gadea Macarena González Departamento de Ecología y Biología Evolutiva, Instituto de Investigaciones Biológicas Clemente Estable, Avenida Italia 3318, 11600 Montevideo, Uruguay email: maca.gonzal@gmail.com...

Polygynous males increase their reproductive success by fertilizing as many females as possible. However, this strategy can lead to costs for the males. This study focused on an atypical wolf spider that lives in webs, Aglaoctenus lagotis. Previous studies report polyandrous females, but little is known about the mating strategy of males and its po...

El presente informe resume el trabajo del monitoreo del estado de conservación de la biodiversidad del Parque Nacional Esteros de Farrapos e Islas del Río Uruguay. Dicho monitoreo fue realizado por un equipo de investigadores del MNHN—MEC, en el marco de un acuerdo de trabajo con el SNAP—MVOTMA, entre 2018 y 2019. Para el monitoreo fueron seleccion...

Populations of a species may show variation in mating systems, especially when the species is widely distributed. Aglaoctenus lagotis is a funnel-web wolf spider distributed in South America and with a ‘central Argentina form’ (CA) and a ‘southern Uruguay form’ (SU). Both forms differ in sexual behaviour, population density and copulatory season. T...

Damage to genital structures during copulation has been reported in about twenty spider families, but never in Lycosidae. Aglaoctenus lagotis (Holmberg, 1876), a South American Wolf spider, is one of the few that live their whole lives in funnel-webs. This work reports on the damage to pedipalpal bulbs observed in males of the "southern Uruguay" fo...

La lista de especies prioritarias para la conservación en Uruguay resulta un insumo imprescindible para la gestión de la biodiversidad a nivel nacional y regional. Actualmente esta lista contiene vertebrados, plantas vasculares y moluscos continentales, siendo estos últimos los únicos representantes de invertebrados. Los arácnidos son predadores “t...

Constructing webs for survival is rare in wolf spiders. However, some species, postulated as basal in the family, live in funnel-webs. Aglaoctenus lagotis (Holmberg 1876), a South American lycosid, lives permanently in webs. It is virtually unknown how web construction occurs for this species and the few other lycosid weavers. Also, costs associate...

Aglaoctenus lagotis (Lycosidae: Sosippinae) is a spider that, in contrast to the predominant wandering habit of the family, constructs funnel webs. The species is widely distributed throughout the Neotropics and is credited with high levels of intraspecific variation. Here, we evaluate whether reproductive isolating barriers operate between some po...

Comparisons of phenological patterns among populations within a species are uncommon in arachnids. Aglaoctenus lagotis is a wolf spider that lives in funnel-webs across South America. The aim of this study was to describe the phenological patterns of two distant populations of A. lagotis (central Argentina, CA, and southern Uruguay, SU). Individual...

Generally, sexual repertoire within a species is conserved, but frequencies of occurrence of sexual behavioral acts often vary, and wide geographic distributions may favor these variations. Aglaoctenus lagotis is distributed along South America and belongs to Sosippinae, a subfamily of wolf spiders that builds funnel webs. Previous reports, based o...

When males have high reproductive investment and female quality is variable, male assessment of sexual partners is expected. Allocosa alticeps (Mello-Leitão 1944) is a nocturnal wolf spider that shows a reversal in the sex roles and sexual size dimorphism usual in spiders. Females are the smaller, mobile sex, and they initiate courtship. Males cons...

Allocosa brasiliensis and Allocosa alticeps are two burrowing wolf spiders that inhabit Uruguayan sandy coasts. Male efficient digging is necessary because copulation and oviposition occur inside their burrows. We examined burrow distribution, density and temperature variation according to burrow depth. Adult burrows were more frequent at the slope...

Sexual cannibalism usually involves females attacking and consuming males before, during or after copulation. Sex role reversed systems may provide insight into the debate about whether it arises as mistaken identity, a spillover in female aggressiveness, foraging decisions, and/or extreme mate choice. In such systems, males may be selective and vo...

Many female spiders show high sexual receptivity when they are virgins but they become reluctant after their first mating, thus producing changes in the operational sex ratio of the species. In the wolf spider Schizocosa malitiosa (Tullgren 1905) female reluctance may be caused by the transference of sperm associated substances to sperm receptacles...

Allocosa alticeps and Allocosa brasiliensis are two sex-role-reversed spiders. Females locate males and initiate courtship. Copulation occurs inside male burrows and after copulation the males deliver their burrows to the females. We explored the occurrence of differences in morphological traits related to sex roles in both Allocosa species and com...

The use of chemical signals in a sexual context is widespread in the animal kingdom. Most studies in spiders report the use of female pheromones that attract potential sexual partners. Allocosa brasiliensis and Allocosa alticeps are two burrowing wolf spiders that show sex-role reversal. Females locate male burrows and initiate courtship before mal...

Environments where prey availability is scarce or highly variable have been reported as potential settings for the occurrence of paternal investment and sex-role reversal (choosy males and competitive, courting females). Allocosa brasiliensis (Petrunkevitch 1910) and Allocosa alticeps (Mello-Leita˜o 1944) are two sand-dwelling wolf spiders that con...

Males can change their copulatory or sperm transfer patterns in response to sperm competition risk. Schizocosa malitiosa performs long copulations, which include two consecutive patterns (Patterns 1 and 2). Virgin females are very sexually receptive, but mated females diminish their receptiveness. Female unreceptivity has been attributed to the act...

We report release of silk threads by males of Schizocosa malitiosa (Tullgren 1905) during copulation. The silk is deposited over the female's front legs and near her mouthparts. Possible functions for this behavior could be inhibiting female aggressiveness through chemicals deposited on the silk, inducing female catalepsy during copulation or repel...