When imagining research into spider biology, one might picture anything from the horror writing of Ezekiel Boone to science fiction comic heroes such as Spiderman, but for several labs at UC Berkeley’s Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management, invertebrates, including spiders, are the focus of a wide array of nonfiction projects. On a large scale, researchers in the field of spider biology are exploring everything from genetics to taxonomy to biomechanics. The Elias Lab at UC Berkeley is an animal communication and behavior lab that focuses on bioacoustic research.
Bioacoustic research is a hybrid science that combines the disciplines of biology and acoustics in general, it studies the ways in which animals produce, respond to and interact with sound. The Elias Lab studies the different ways that various creatures behave and how this behavior might adapt and change in response to stimuli.