Spiders did not repeatedly gain, but repeatedly lost, foraging webs

Much genomic-scale, especially transcriptomic, data on spider phylogeny has accumulated in the last few years. These data have recently been used to investigate the diverse architectures and the origin of spider webs, concluding that the ancestral spider spun no foraging web, that spider webs evolved de novo 10-14 times, and that the orb web evolved at least three times. In fact, these findings principally result from inappropriate phylogenetic methodology, specifically coding the absence of webs as logically equivalent, and homologous to, 10 other observable (i.e. not absent) web architectures. “Absence” of webs is simply inapplicable data. To be analyzed properly by character optimization algorithms, it must be coded as “?” or “-” because these codes, and these alone, are handled differently by such algorithms. Additional problems include critical misspellings of taxon names from one analysis to the next (dropping even one taxon affects taxon sampling and results), and mistakes in spider natural history. In sum, methodological error: 1) causes character optimization algorithms to produce illogical results, and 2) does not distinguish absence from secondary loss. Proper methodology and corrected data instead imply that foraging webs are primitive for spiders and that webs have been lost ~5-7 times, not gained 10-14 times. The orb web, specifically, may be homologous (originated only once) although lost 2-6 times.