Hannah Wood

My research focuses on the evolution of morphological diversity and I take several different approaches to address questions about trait evolution over time and space. 

1. First, phylogenetics forms the foundation of my research: a phylogeny is a necessary component of my research so that phylogenetic history can be corrected for during statistical analysis of trait evolution. 

2. Next, my research explores the link between form and function, which is crucial to understanding how morphological diversification occurs. Morphological diversity may be redundant in relation to function, that is, different morphological solutions may evolve to produce similar performance, yet, to test this hypothesis it needs to be determined exactly how form relates to function. 

3. I make use of an excellent opportunity, the extensive fossil record in my study system, to examine shifts in morphological diversity and disparity over time. 

4. Finally, the study of morphological evolution is confounded by distribution patterns. As part of my research, I examine the interplay between trait evolution and biogeography patterns.

The focus of my research is mostly on a group of unusual spiders, the palpimanoids, which have restricted distributions, exhibit strikingly deviant morphological, behavioral, and ecological traits, and are ancient lineages with an extensive fossil record. This group is excellent for addressing questions about how a specific trait functions, which in turn, may allow for examination of broader macroevolution questions about how these traits (as well as lineages) diversify. In particular, I am interested in the evolution of novel modifications of the cephalic area (the carapace) and chelicerae (“jaws”) within palpimanoids, which allow them to capture prey in innovative ways. While my research has focused on spiders, the questions I ask are universal to the field of evolutionary biology and can be applied to any organism.

Journal Article

• Hazzi, Nicolás A. and Wood, Hannah M. 2025. "Madagascar Speciation on Mountains: Pleistocene Glaciation Cycles Promote Genetic Divergence, Secondary Contact, and Morphological Diversification in Sympatric Lineages of the Pelican Spider Eriauchenus workmani (Archaeidae)." Molecular ecology, https://doi.org/10.1111/mec.70007.
• Hazzi, Nicolas A., Wood, Hannah M., and Hormiga, Gustavo. 2025. "Repeated habitat shifts and varying dispersal rates between habitats shape ecomorphological assembly of wandering Ctenidae spiders across continents." Journal of Evolutionary Biology, https://doi.org/10.1093/jeb/voaf074.
• Black, Corinthia R., Shultz, Jeffrey W., and Wood, Hannah M. 2024. "Extended phenotype affects somatic phenotype in spiders: web builders have lower estimated biting forces than free hunters." Evolution, https://doi.org/10.1093/evolut/qpae170.
• de Miranda,Gustavo, S., Kulkarni, Siddharth S., Tagliatela, Jéssica, Baker, Caitlin M., Giupponi, Alessandro P. L., Labarque, Facundo M., Gavish-Regev, Efrat, Rix, Michael G., Carvalho, Leonardo S., Fusari, Lívia Maria, Harvey, Mark S., Wood, Hannah M., and Sharma, Prashant P. 2024. "The rediscovery of a relict unlocks the first global phylogeny of whip spiders (Amblypygi)." Systematic Biology, https://doi.org/10.1093/sysbio/syae021.
• Hazzi, Nicolas A., Wood, Hannah M., and Hormiga, Gustavo. 2024. "Reassessing the evolutionary relationships of tropical wandering spiders using phylogenomics: A UCE-based phylogeny of Ctenidae (Araneae) with the discovery of a new lycosoid family." Molecular phylogenetics and evolution, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ympev.2024.108245.
• Wood, Hannah M., Kulkarni, Siddharth, Ramírez,Martín, J., and Scharff, Nikolaj. 2024. "Phylogeny and biogeography support ancient vicariance and subsequent dispersal out of Africa in Palpimanidae spiders (Araneae)." Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, 202, (2). https://doi.org/10.1093/zoolinnean/zlae129.
• Kulkarni, Siddharth, Wood, Hannah M., and Hormiga, Gustavo. 2023. "Phylogenomics illuminates the evolution of orb webs, respiratory systems and the biogeographic history of the world’s smallest orb-weaving spiders (Araneae, Araneoidea, Symphytognathoids)." Molecular phylogenetics and evolution, 186. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ympev.2023.107855.
• Kulkarni, Siddharth, Wood, Hannah M., and Hormiga, Gustavo. 2023. "Advances in the reconstruction of the spider tree of life: A roadmap for spider systematics and comparative studies." Cladistics, https://doi.org/10.1111/cla.12557.
• Wood, Hannah M. and Wunderlich, J. örg. 2023. "Burma Terrane Amber Fauna Shows Connections to Gondwana and Transported Gondwanan Lineages to the Northern Hemisphere (Araneae: Palpimanoidea)." Systematic Biology, https://doi.org/10.1093/sysbio/syad047.
• Kallal, Robert J. and Wood, Hannah M. 2022. "High-Density Three-Dimensional Morphometric Analyses Reveal Predation-Based Disparity and Evolutionary Modularity in Spider 'Jaws'." Evolutionary Biology, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11692-022-09576-y.
• Kallal, Robert J., Wood, Hannah M., Garcia, Erika L., and de Miranda, Gustavo Silva. 2022. "Patterns in schizomid flagellum shape from elliptical Fourier analysis." Scientific Reports, 12, (1). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-07823-y.
• Berger, Cory A., Brewer, Michael S., Kono, Nobuaki, Nakamura, Hiroyuki, Arakawa, Kazuharu, Kennedy, Susan R., Wood, Hannah M., Adams, Seira A., and Gillespie, Rosemary G. 2021. "Shifts in morphology, gene expression, and selection underlie web loss in Hawaiian Tetragnatha spiders." BMC Ecology and Evolution, 21, (1) Article 48. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12862-021-01779-9.
• Wood, Hannah M., Singh, Hukam, and Grimaldi, David A. 2021. "Another Laurasian connection in the Early Eocene of India: Myrmecarchaea spiders (Araneae, Archaeidae)." ZooKeys, 1071 49–61. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.1071.72515.
• Kallal, Robert J., Elias, Damian O., and Wood, Hannah M. 2021. "Not So Fast: Strike Kinematics of the Araneoid Trap-Jaw Spider Pararchaea alba (Malkaridae: Pararchaeinae)." Integrative Organismal Biology, 3, (1). https://doi.org/10.1093/iob/obab027.
• Ramírez, Martín J., Magalhaes, Ivan L. F., Derkarabetian, Shahan, Ledford, Joel, Griswold, Charles E., Wood, Hannah M., and Hedin, Marshal. 2021. "Sequence Capture Phylogenomics of True Spiders Reveals Convergent Evolution of Respiratory Systems." Systematic Biology, 70, (1) 14–20. https://doi.org/10.1093/sysbio/syaa043.
• Wood, Hannah M. 2021. "The strike of the dragonfly larvae." Science Robotics, 6, (50) Article eabf4718. https://doi.org/10.1126/scirobotics.abf4718.
• Rix, Michael G., Wood, Hannah M., Michalik, Peter, and Harvey, Mark S. 2021. "Micro-Computed Tomography Reveals a Remarkable Twin Intromittent Organ in Spiders – A Novelty for Arachnids With Direct Sperm Transfer." Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, 9. https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2021.794708.
• Carbuccia, Benjamin, Wood, Hannah M., Rollard, Christine, Nel, Andre, and Garrouste, Romain. 2020. "A new Myrmecarchaea (Araneae: Archaeidae) species from Oise amber (earliest Eocene, France)." BSGF - Earth Sciences Bulletin, 191 Article 24. https://doi.org/10.1051/bsgf/2020023.
• Kulkarni, Siddharth, Kallal, Robert J., Wood, Hannah, Dimitrov, Dimitar, Giribet, Gonzalo, and Hormiga, Gustavo. 2020. "Interrogating Genomic-Scale Data to Resolve Recalcitrant Nodes in the Spider Tree of Life." Molecular biology and evolution, https://doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msaa251.
• Kulkarni, Siddharth, Wood, Hannah, Lloyd, Michael, and Hormiga, Gustavo. 2020. "Spider-specific probe set for ultraconserved elements offers new perspectives on the evolutionary history of spiders (Arachnida, Araneae)." Molecular Ecology Resources, 20, (1) 185–203. https://doi.org/10.1111/1755-0998.13099.
• Wood, Hannah M. 2020. "Morphology and performance of the 'trap-jaw' cheliceral strikes in spiders (Araneae, Mecysmaucheniidae)." The Journal of experimental biology, 223, (14) Article–jeb219899. https://doi.org/10.1242/jeb.219899.
• Chousou-Polydouri, Natalia, Carmichael, Anthea, Szuts, Tamas, Saucedo, Alma, Gillespie, Rosemary, Griswold, Charles, and Wood, Hannah M. 2019. "Giant Goblins above the waves at the southern end of the world: The biogeography of the spider family Orsolobidae (Araneae, Dysderoidea)." Journal of Biogeography, 46, (2) 332–342. https://doi.org/10.1111/jbi.13487.
• Wood, Hannah M. and Parkinson, Dilworth Y. 2019. "Comparative morphology of cheliceral muscles using high-resolution X-ray microcomputed-tomography in palpimanoid spiders (Araneae, Palpimanoidea)." Journal of Morphology, 280, (2) 232–243. https://doi.org/10.1002/jmor.20939.
• Wood, Hannah M., González, Vanessa L., Lloyd, Michael, Coddington, Jonathan, and Scharff, Nikolaj. 2018. "Next-Generation museum genomics: phylogenetic relationships among palpimanoid spiders using sequence capture techniques (Araneae: Palpimanoidea)." Molecular phylogenetics and evolution, 127 907–918. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ympev.2018.06.038.
• Wood, Hannah M. and Scharff, Nikolaj. 2018. "A review of the Madagascan pelican spiders of the genera Eriauchenius O. Pickard-Cambridge, 1881 and Madagascarchaea gen. n. (Araneae, Archaeidae)." Zookeys, (727) 1–96. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.727.20222.
• Wheeler, Ward C., Coddington, Jonathan A., Crowley, Louise M., Dimitrov, Dimitar, Goloboff, Pablo A., Griswold, Charles E., Hormiga, Gustavo, Prendini, Lorenzo, Ramírez, Martín J., Sierwald, Petra, Almeida-Silva, Lina, Alvarez-Padilla, Fernando, Arnedo, Miquel A., Benavides Silva, Ligia R., Benjamin, Suresh P., Bond, Jason E., Grismado, Cristian J., Hasan, Emile, Hedin, Marshal, Izquierdo, Matías A., Labarque, Facundo M., Ledford, Joel, Lopardo, Lara, Maddison, Wayne P., Miller, Jeremy A. et al. 2017. "The spider tree of life: phylogeny of Araneae based on target-gene analyses from an extensive taxon sampling." Cladistics, 33, (6) 574–616. https://doi.org/10.1111/cla.12182.
• Wood, Hannah M. 2017. "Integrating fossil and extant lineages: an examination of morphological space through time (Araneae: Archaeidae)." Journal of Arachnology, 45, (1) 20–29. https://doi.org/10.1636/JoA-S-16-039.1.
• Wood, Hannah M., Parkinson, Dilworth Y, Griswold, Charles E, Gillespie, Rosemary G., and Elias, Damian O. 2016. "Repeated Evolution of Power-Amplified Predatory Strikes in Trap-Jaw Spiders." Current Biology, 26, (8) 1057–1061. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2016.02.029.
• Wood, Hannah M., Gillespie, Rosemary G., Griswold, Charles E., and Wainwright, Peter C. 2015. "Why is Madagascar special? The extraordinarily slow evolution of pelican spiders (Araneae, Archaeidae): MADAGASCAR ARCHAEID SPIDERS." Evolution, 69, (2) 462–481. https://doi.org/10.1111/evo.12578.
• Wood, Hannah M., Matzke, Nicholas J., Gillespie, Rosemary G., and Griswold, Charles E. 2013. "Treating Fossils as Terminal Taxa in Divergence Time Estimation Reveals Ancient Vicariance Patterns in the Palpimanoid Spiders." Systematic Biology, 62, (2) 264–284. https://doi.org/10.1093/sysbio/sys092.
• Griswold, Charles E., Wood, Hannah M., and Carmichael, Anthea D. 2012. "The lace web spiders (Araneae, Phyxelididae) of Madagascar: phylogeny, biogeography and taxonomy: Phyxelidid Spiders." Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, 164, (4) 728–810. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1096-3642.2011.00779.x.
• Wood, Hannah M., Griswold, Charles E., and Gillespie, Rosemary G. 2012. "Phylogenetic placement of pelican spiders (Archaeidae, Araneae), with insight into evolution of the “neck” and predatory behaviours of the superfamily Palpimanoidea." Cladistics, 28, (6) 598–626. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1096-0031.2012.00411.x.
• Wood, Hannah M. 2008. "A revision of the assassin spiders of the Eriauchenius gracilicollis group, a clade of spiders endemic to Madagascar (Araneae: Archaeidae)." Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, 152, (2) 255–296. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1096-3642.2007.00359.x.
• Wood, Hannah M., Griswold, Charles E., and Spicer, Greg S. 2007. "Phylogenetic relationships within an endemic group of Malagasy ‘assassin spiders’ (Araneae, Archaeidae): ancestral character reconstruction, convergent evolution and biogeography." Molecular phylogenetics and evolution, 45, (2) 612–619. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ympev.2007.07.012.

Dataset

• De Miranda, Gustavo, Kulkarni, Siddharth, Tagliatela, Jessica, Baker, Caitlin, Giupponi, Alessandro P. L., Labarque, Facundo, Gavish-Regev, Efrat, Rix, Michael, Carvalho, Leonardo, Fusari, Livia, Wood, Hannah, and Sharma, Prashant. 2022. [Dataset] The rediscovery of a relict unlocks the first global phylogeny of whip spiders (Amblypygi). Distributed by Dryad. https://doi.org/10.5061/DRYAD.M63XSJ449.