Hypogean habitats such as caves are ideal field laboratories to study the biotic and abiotic, historical and current forces affecting biological adaptations, speciation, and local species assemblages. This project includes documenting the arachnid diversity in caves; describing species new to science and understanding distribution and habitat requirements. As part of this project, Dr. Gavish-Regev and collaborators received a National Geographic research grant (with Dr. Jesus Ballesteros and Prof. Prashant Sharma from The University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA) that has supported extensive field sampling for genomic and transcriptomics analysis.In addition we have the goal of understanding the mechanisms of speciation, adaptations, and cave assemblage formation. In order to achieve this goal, we use population genomics, transcriptomics and bioinformatics tools in addition to field experiments. Recently, Dr. Gavish-Regev (ISF) and collaborators won three competitive research grants (BSF and NSF-BSF with Prof. Sharma). Each of these grants is focusing on a different aspect of cave arachnids: biodiversity discovery and documentation including taxonomy, phylogeny and population genetics (BSF); genetic mechanisms of eye loss in troglobite arachnids (NSF-BSF); and food-webs in caves and the effect of biotic and abiotic factors on cave arachnid assemblages (ISF). As part of this project, one post-doc (Dr. Sharon Warburg) and three Ph.D. students (Shlomi Aharon, Zeana Ganem, and Evgenia Propistsova) are studying the different aspects of arachnids in caves.
Several papers and species new to science were published by Efrat Gavish-Regev and collaborators as a result of these projects, all material collected in these projects was deposited at the National Arachnid Collection, and the Insect collection at NNHC, HUJ.
שבעה מינים חדשים למדע תוארו ממערות בישראל
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Aharon S. S, Ballesteros J.A.C, Gainett G.S, Sharma P.P.PI, and Gavish-Regev E.PI 2022. In the land of the blind: exceptional subterranean speciation of cryptic troglobitic spiders of the genus Tegenaria (Araneae: Agelenidae) in Israel. Submitted to Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution |
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Baker C.M., Ballesteros J.A., Aharon S., Gainett G., Armiach Steinpress I., Wizen G., Sharma P.P., and Gavish-Regev E. , 2022. Recent speciation and phenotypic plasticity within a parthenogenetic lineage of Levantine whip spiders (Chelicerata: Amblypygi: Charinidae). Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, 175, 107560. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2022.107560. |
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Magalhaes I.L.F., Aharon S., Ganem Z. and Gavish-Regev E., 2022. A new semi-cryptic Filistata from caves in the Levant with comments on the limits of Filistata insidiatrix (Forsskål, 1775) (Arachnida: Araneae: Filistatidae). European Journal of Taxonomy, 831, 149–174. doi: 10.5852/ejt.2022.831.1875.. |
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Ferreira R.L., Bernard E., da Cruz Júnior F.W., Piló L.B., Calux A., Souza-Silva M., Barlow J., Pompeu P.S., Cardoso P., Mammola S., García A.M., Jeffery W.R., Shear W., Medellín R.A., Wynne J.J., Borges P.A.V., Kamimura Y., Pipan T., Hajna N.Z., Sendra A., Peck S., Onac B.P., Culver D.C., Hoch H., Flot J.F., Stoch F., Pavlek M., Niemiller M.L., Manchi S., Deharveng L., Fenolio D., Calaforra J.M., Yager J., Griebler C., Nader F.H., Humphreys W.F., Hughes A.C., Fenton B., Forti P., Sauro F., Veni G., Frumkin A., Gavish-Regev E., et al. (+ 50 additional authors). 2022. Brazilian cave heritage under siege. Science, 375, 6586 (letter), 1238–1239. doi:10.1126/science.abo1973. |
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Cuff J.P., Aharon S., Armiach Steinpress I., Seifan M., Lubin Y., and Gavish-Regev E. 2021. It’s All about the Zone: Spider Assemblages in Different Ecological Zones of Levantine Caves. Diversity, 13, 576 (18 pp.). doi: 10.3390/d13110576. |
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Gavish-Regev E., Aharon S., Armiach Steinpress I., Seifan M., and Lubin Y., 2021. A primer on spider assemblages in Levantine caves: the neglected subterranean habitats of the Levant - a biodiversity mine. Diversity, 13, 179 (25 pp.). doi:10.3390/d13050179. |
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Gainett G., Ballesteros J.A., Kanzler C.R., Charlotte R., Zehms J.T., Zern J.M., Aharon S., Gavish-Regev E., and Sharma P.P., 2020. Systemic paralogy and function of retinal determination network homologs in arachnids. BMC Genomics, 21, 811 (17 pp.). doi:10.1186/s12864-020-07149-x. |
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Mammola S., Aharon S., Seifan M., Lubin Y., & Gavish-Regev E., 2019. Exploring the Interplay Between Local and Regional Drivers of Distribution of a Subterranean Organism. Diversity, 11, 119 (16 pp.). (^first co-authorship). doi:10.3390/d11080119. |
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Aharon S., Ballesteros J.A., Crawford A.R., Friske K., Gainett G., Langford B., Santibáñez-López C.E., Ya’aran S., Gavish-Regev E., and Sharma P.P., 2019. The anatomy of an unstable node: A Levantine relict precipitates phylogenomic dissolution of higher-level relationships of the armored harvestmen (Arachnida: Opiliones: Laniatores). Invertebrate Systematics, 33, 697-717. doi:10.1071/IS19002. |
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Aharon S., Huber B.A., and Gavish-Regev E., 2017. Daddy-long-leg giants: Revision of the spider genus Artema Walckenaer, 1837 (Araneae, Pholcidae). European Journal of Taxonomy, 376, 1–57. doi:10.5852/ejt.2017.376. |
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Miranda G.S., Aharon S., Gavish-Regev E., Giupponi A.P.L., and Wizen G., 2016. A new species of Charinus Simon, 1892 (Arachnida: Amblypygi: Charinidae) from Israel and new records of C. ioanniticus (Kritscher, 1959). European Journal of Taxonomy, 234, 1–17. doi:10.5852/ejt.2016.234. |
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Gavish-Regev E., Aharon S., Armiach I., and Lubin Y., 2016. Cave survey yields a new spider family record for Israel. Arachnologische Mitteilungen / Arachnology Letters, 51, 39–42. doi:10.5431/aramit5105. |