How many times has web-building independently arisen across different clades of the Lycosidae family?
At least twice.
The diversification of wolf spiders into various predatory strategies is a classic example of adaptive radiation where different clades evolved solutions to exploit newly available niches, especially as the climate cooled and open, arid habitats expanded. The text explicitly notes that complex behaviors involving silk structures evolved multiple times convergently rather than being inherited from a single ancestor. Specifically, the behavior categorized as web-building—which can manifest as suspended tubes or funnel webs—is documented to have arisen independently in at least two separate branches of the wolf spider family tree. Furthermore, burrowing habits have evolved even more frequently, arising at least three separate times in distinct clades.
