About the project
Like it or not, we are surrounded by spiders. They are abundant, natural members of our ecosystems. As predators they eat a large amount of insects that may otherwise be eating our plants or possibly sucking our blood. Spiders adorn our world with beautiful webs, and provide a resource for discovery in the chemicals in their venoms and the biomaterials in their silk. The overwhelming majority of spiders are harmless to humans.
The goal of this project is to share information about the spiders that are generally found in Portland, Oregon, and specifically on the campus of Lewis & Clark College. The project began as part of a Fall 2010 Perspectives in Biology course that is designed to teach basic scientific inquiry to non-science majors. This iteration of the course was taught by Professor Greta Binford and focused on Biodiversity using arachnids (spiders and their relatives) as examples. Seventy students collected local spiders either on the campus of Lewis & Clark College, or in and around their homes in Portland. The students isolated DNA from the spiders, used PCR to amplify the Barcode gene CO1 (cytochrome oxidase 1), and photographed the spiders. We have compiled these photographs and made them available on this site with descriptions and links to further information about the species and groups we found. The students used the CO1 nucleotide sequence data to search databases to learn how sequence homology searching works, and to help with species IDs. Those sequence data are posted here alongside photographs of the animals.
We hope this information will foster appreciation of the little creatures with whom we share our world.
The following students participated in this project.
Tala Al-Mangour
Megan Alpine
Ella Antell
Ashley Beck
Emily Berger
Hannah Blacksin
Robert Bosworth
Barra Brown
Jason Buchanan
Adrienne Bugbee
Ava Busler
Katherine Chaberski
Garrett Chavis
Zoe Ching
Julia Condon
Margaret Crews
Parker Dane
Claire De Louraille de Lestaubiere
Erica Dimond
Natalie Eagan
Taylor Finch
Amy Fredericks
Andrew Frisina
Elysia Gabe
Zoe Garcia
Chelsea Garrett
Davida Grimes
Tyson Guajardo
Amanda Hefner
Zoe Henion
Hanna Hilliard
Richard Hunt
Jillian Johnson
Alyssa Kent
Carmelle Kniss
Joseph Kopp
Charles Krause
Lynsey Lacher
Caitlin Laughney
Elizabeth Leider
Dana Levin
Hannah McCain
Abigail McNamara
Maya Midgley
Jose Molina-Sefchick
Corinne Monaco
Ashley Morgan
John Mulroy
Zina Noel
Juliette Nolan
Kelsey Ostenaa
Savannah Prentiss
Allyson Rust
Megan Sadler
Anna Shumann
Taylor Simmons
Eliot Smith
Samantha Stein
Alisa Tanaka
Helen Vernier
Sara Villanueva
Neal Walker
Elana Webb
Luke Weinstein
Marcus Wells
Gail Wilcoxen
Courtney Williams
Anthony Zamora
Greta Binford
Associate Professor of Biology
Lewis & Clark
Bio-Psych Rm 224
503-768-7653 (office)
503-768-7658 (fax)
binford@lclark.edu
For design/technical inquiries about this project:
Jeremy McWilliams
Digital Services Coordinator
Lewis & Clark
Watzek Library
503-768-7267
jeremym@lclark.edu
Anneliese Dehner
Metadata & Digital Projects Specialist
Lewis & Clark
Watzek Library
503-768-7267
adehner@lclark.edu
