New research chair keeps eye on spiders
New Canada 150 Research Chair Jonathan Pruitt studies evolutionary path of societies
Jonathan Pruitt certainly sees the irony.
Pruitt studies societal collapse and recovery, and he’s excited to be coming to Hamilton to do it.
“The story of Hamilton is the story of collapse and recovery,” said Pruitt, who was named last week as a Canada 150 Research Chair at McMaster University in the ominously named area of Biological Dystopias.
“Hamilton has a bit of a chip on its shoulder,” said Pruitt, one of the country’s youngest Canada 150 Research Chairs at 32 years old. “It has to prove something, it has to show the world — and it is showing the world — that it’s not some former steeltown dump.
“It’s a thriving, fascinating place,” he said. “You can be creative there.”
Pruitt is an evolutionary ecologist and he studies insects mostly, not post-industrial steel cities — although some day, his findings be transferable to people.
As an evolutionary ecologist, Pruitt looks at the evolution of collective traits in a society and how they are influenced by the surrounding environment. He studies what happens when those environments change and how changing the makeup of a society impacts its ability to thrive or even survive.
It would be impossible — and highly unethical — to try these experiments on humans so Pruitt works with insects, preferably a species known as social spiders.
These spiders work together in colonies but they don’t have specified types, such as queens or workers or soldiers.
“But that doesn’t mean individuals are the same,” Pruitt said. “Within these spider societies, individuals differ in their personality types.”
Pruitt will artificially manipulate the colony — say, the ratio of docile to aggressive members, or bold to shy members — and then see how the society evolves in different environments. What he’s found is that the ratios eventually adapt to the local conditions into the optimal mixture of types.
“Different sites have evolved these mechanisms without management or central control,” he said. “There’s no HR program to maintain those optimal ratios.
“These animals have figured out how to do that all on their own and that’s a pretty inspiring notion,” he added. “And if they have a really bad mixture, everybody dies.”
Pruitt grew up near Orlando, and has most recently been a faculty member at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Maureen MacDonald, dean of the McMaster’s Faculty of Science, said Pruitt’s work will have a big impact in the field of animal behaviour.
“Jonathan is recognized as an international leader in his field and his work complements so much of the leading-edge work coming out of the Department of Psychology, Neuroscience and Behaviour,” MacDonald said in a statement.
“We’re excited for him to bring his robust research program to McMaster, develop interdisciplinary research initiatives with colleagues across the faculty and university, and expand the scope of our animal and human behaviour research.”