ACEBB Guest Speaker - Mike Rix

Hosted by the Australian Centre for Evolutionary Biology and Biodiversity

ACEBB presented Mike Rix, from the University of Adelaide/ WA Museum on Wednesday 5th December.

Assassins, micro-orb weavers and southern temperate biogeography: A decade of research in systematic arachnology.

Temperate Australia is home to a diverse and largely endemic spider fauna, including many taxa of biogeographic and phylogenetic significance. The ‘Micro Orb-Weavers' of the superfamily Araneoidea and the ‘Assassin Spiders' of the family Archaeidae are two such
groups, both largely unstudied taxonomically yet central to competing phylogenetic hypotheses. This seminar explores the systematics of three spider families - the Pararchaeidae, Micropholcommatidae and Archaeidae - summarising research developments over the last decade, and highlighting recent taxonomic, phylogenetic and biogeographic outcomes. The evolution of all three lineages is intimately tied to the deeper biogeographic history of Gondwana, on the one hand, and to the later Miocene contraction and
fragmentation of Australia's mesic biome, on the other. Future research prospects will also be highlighted, as new research commences on the trapdoor spiders of the family Idiopidae - another putatively Gondwanan, temperate lineage, which has radiated throughout the Australian arid zone.

Mike Rix is employed by the University of Adelaide as a post doc fellow on a new ARC Linkage grant of Andy Austin, Mark Harvey (WA Museum) and Steve Cooper. He is based most of the time at the WA Museum.