Topic
Bagheera
About: Bagheera is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 2 publications have been published within this topic receiving 105 citations.
Papers
1 Jan 2011
TL;DR: There are striking examples of predatory specialisation from spiders, particularly among the Salticidae, suggesting that assumptions about adaptive trade-offs, in which the small nervous systems of spiders might constrain their cognitive or sensory abilities, need to be carefully evaluated.
Abstract: Although many spiders build prey-capture webs, spider foraging strategies include species that, instead of building webs, deploy silk in other ways for prey capture. Additionally, there are species that capture prey, either by ambush or by active pursuit, without making notable use of silk in the process. There are striking examples of predatory specialisation from spiders, particularly among the Salticidae, suggesting that assumptions about adaptive trade-offs, in which the small nervous systems of spiders might constrain their cognitive or sensory abilities, need to be carefully evaluated. Predatory versatility, whereby an individual spider adopts a conditional strategy with which it classifies prey into diverse categories, illustrates that an individual spider may be a poly-specialist, because it is polyphagic and at the same time it is highly specialised on more than one prey type. More generally, individual flexibility in spider behaviour has important implications concerning the cognitive capacities of predators that orchestrate their strategies using small nervous systems. Introduction At first glance, characterising spider foraging might appear straightforward. All spiders are predators, and most frequently the spider's prey is an insect. All spiders produce silk, which is often put to use as part of their predatory arsenal. Yet a closer look reveals staggering diversity – and it is not just variation between species that contributes to this diversity, as we also need to address variation within single species and even within individual spiders.
79 citations
1 Jan 2011
TL;DR: Group living occurs in two different forms in spiders, cooperatively breeding social species and colonial species, while the main differences between them lie in degree of cooperation and the mating and breeding systems.
Abstract: Group living occurs in two different forms in spiders, cooperatively breeding social species and colonial species. The social species construct a communal nest and capture web, capture prey and feed together and cooperate in raising the young. Social spiders lack pre-mating dispersal, which results in regular inbreeding within colonies. Social species are thought to be derived from subsocial forms, which have lengthy maternal care and some cooperation among young, but pre-mating dispersal of juveniles limits inbreeding. There are currently only 25 known social species occurring in seven different families and representing perhaps 19 independent evolutionary transitions to sociality. Colonial group living is much more common and occurs in a wide range of forms, from short-lived or long-lived aggregations of web-building spiders to communal nesting of active hunting species. Colonial species generally do not cooperate in prey capture and feeding, though there are exceptions; they do not cooperate in brood care; they have pre-mating dispersal and are outbred. Coloniality is likely derived from aggregation at rich food sources or nesting sites. Cooperation in the colonial species takes the form of sharing silk structures such as frame threads and nesting sites. The benefits of close proximity include the capture of larger prey and reduced variance in prey amount per spider and early warning of the presence of predators or parasites. However, group living carries costs of greater visibility both to potential prey and to predators and parasites. These benefits and costs are similar in cooperative-breeding and colonial species, while the main differences between them lie in degree of cooperation and the mating and breeding systems.
Related Topics (5)
Performance Metrics
| Year | Papers |
|---|---|
| 2011 | 2 |