Atrend rubberized 'nails' on eggs to try to prevent nest contamination, but risk that the flowers from vegetation also contaminated.
Molecular dating for the model of this interaction revealed that when pea bees lived alongside spiders, they developed a wide range of inbred varieties which showed how the presence of the spider affected the reproduction of their offspring. The reduction in spider abundance forced a more efficient breeding of the pests and, when the spiders moved out, allowed pest species to replace the spots they previously occupied. The study, published in Nature Communications, comes as the world is approaching its end of spring.
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