Stress and its influence on fertility in various organisms and how human physiology can be modeled in wolf spiders

Abstract

Every environment is filled with stressors that affect every organism that lives there. Different types of stress include predation, dietary, climate, and even social stress. Each species experiences a unique set of potential stressors, but they all create comparable results. Oocyte quality decreases with stress, be it heat stress in rabbits or psychological stress in mice. Humans are not exempt from stressors either, especially psychological or social stress. Women who experience high levels of stress in life can lead to fertility issues. One way to combat these issues is with in vitro fertilization (IVF). IVF success can be negatively influenced by the presence of stress both during the process and throughout the patient's life. Wolf spiders also experience psychological stress and seeing how it affects their ability to reproduce can help to understand how human stress functions. For female wolf spiders, adding dietary stress can decrease ovarian function and fertility. There are significant parallels between human and wolf spider responses to stress. Although the reproduction process of wolf spiders is not identical to humans, there are similarities and could prove to be a novel model for identifying behavioral and physiological patterns affected by stress.