Biologist's Recent Appearance on the Colbert Report Was Indeed Funny...But to Jason Bond, Spider Science is No Laughing Matter
By now, many readers will have heard that the spider-discovering exploits of Dr. Jason Bond, associate professor in ECU’s Department of Biology, landed him a spot on Comedy Central’s Colbert Report. Such are the perks of a true discoverer and researcher. For those who have not yet seen Bond’s moment in the lights, here is a link to the segment.
While Bond’s appearance on the Colbert Report may have lent him some cachet among his students, it did not adequately highlight the strengths and the accomplishments of his research. Bond currently focuses on the evolutionary history of, and diversification among, spiders and millipedes.
He is now working on three different projects and has applied for two more grants. He is currently finishing up a project that seeks to answer questions about the phylogeny and classification of mygalomorph spiders, more commonly known as trapdoor spiders and tarantulas. Bond’s second and third projects are aimed at developing integrative approaches to examining species limits, employing molecular, ecological, GIS, and morphological analyses to delimit populations and species. His third project, in particular, concerns the formal documenting of biodiversity through taxonomic research describing and classifying new species of spiders and millipedes. Bond’s two pending grant proposals also concern the study of biodiversity. In the first of these projects, he will join forces with two other faculty members in ECU’s Dept. of Biology, Drs. Enrique Reyes (assoc. professor) and David Chalcraft (asst. professor), in an attempt to tie ecological modeling, remote sensing data, and spider species diversity studies across the coastal plain of eastern North Carolina. The second pending grant is targeted to the study of North American tarantulas, specifically on questions of species diversity, phylogeny, and taxonomy.
Bond sees biodiversity studies as key to his future lab work. He says, “The scientific field of taxonomy has stalled, in my opinion, and the field really needs to change if we are going to meet increasing demands to document biodiversity. This includes developing rapid genomic approaches to evaluating species limits and integrating these methods across what we already know.” While Jason Bond’s research may appear esoteric to the casual observer, people are beginning to understand the overall benefit to the study of biodiversity, and even of spiders.
For one thing, despite the fear that many people feel towards spiders, these creatures are actually quite important to human health and quality of life. Spiders consume anywhere from 40 to 250 kg of insect biomass per hectare per year. Without them, we might be overrun by insects. Beyond that, Bond cites the example of the colony collapse disorder in honey bees as a more accessible approach to explaining the importance of guarding biodiversity. While the cause of the colony collapse disorder is not yet fully understood, our agricultural system may hang in the balance owing to the increasing scarcity of pollinators. Research in biodiversity might offer solutions to this growing concern, and to a host of problems not yet imagined. Jason Bond won’t mind if you find his study subjects creepy, or his TV appearances funny, if he can discover something useful to humanity along the way.
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