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Ratz T, Bourdiol J, Moreau S, Vadnais C, Montiglio PO. The evolution of prey-attraction strategies in spiders: the interplay between foraging and predator avoidance. Oecologia 2023; 202:669-684. [PMID: 37540236 PMCID: PMC10475007 DOI: 10.1007/s00442-023-05427-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/21/2023] [Accepted: 07/21/2023] [Indexed: 08/05/2023]
Abstract
Lures and other adaptations for prey attraction are particularly interesting from an evolutionary viewpoint because they are characterized by correlational selection, involve multicomponent signals, and likely reflect a compromise between maximizing conspicuousness to prey while avoiding drawing attention of enemies and predators. Therefore, investigating the evolution of lure and prey-attraction adaptations can help us understand a larger set of traits governing interactions among organisms. We review the literature focusing on spiders (Araneae), which is the most diverse animal group using prey attraction and show that the evolution of prey-attraction strategies must be driven by a trade-off between foraging and predator avoidance. This is because increasing detectability by potential prey often also results in increased detectability by predators higher in the food chain. Thus increasing prey attraction must come at a cost of increased risk of predation. Given this trade-off, we should expect lures and other prey-attraction traits to remain suboptimal despite a potential to reach an optimal level of attractiveness. We argue that the presence of this trade-off and the multivariate nature of prey-attraction traits are two important mechanisms that might maintain the diversity of prey-attraction strategies within and between species. Overall, we aim to stimulate research on this topic and progress in our general understanding of the diversity of predator and prey interactions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tom Ratz
- Behavioural Ecology, Department of Biology, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich, 82152, Planegg-Martinsried, Germany.
- Département des Sciences Biologiques, Université du Québec à Montréal, CP-8888 Succursale Centre-ville, Montréal, QC, H3C 3P, Canada.
| | - Julien Bourdiol
- Département des Sciences Biologiques, Université du Québec à Montréal, CP-8888 Succursale Centre-ville, Montréal, QC, H3C 3P, Canada
| | - Stéphanie Moreau
- Département des Sciences Biologiques, Université du Québec à Montréal, CP-8888 Succursale Centre-ville, Montréal, QC, H3C 3P, Canada
| | - Catherine Vadnais
- Département des Sciences Biologiques, Université du Québec à Montréal, CP-8888 Succursale Centre-ville, Montréal, QC, H3C 3P, Canada
| | - Pierre-Olivier Montiglio
- Département des Sciences Biologiques, Université du Québec à Montréal, CP-8888 Succursale Centre-ville, Montréal, QC, H3C 3P, Canada
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Yu L, Xu X, Zhang Z, Painting CJ, Yang X, Li D. Masquerading predators deceive prey by aggressively mimicking bird droppings in a crab spider. Curr Zool 2022; 68:325-334. [PMID: 35592341 PMCID: PMC9113284 DOI: 10.1093/cz/zoab060] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/23/2021] [Accepted: 07/22/2021] [Indexed: 12/02/2022] Open
Abstract
In aggressive mimicry, a predator accesses prey by mimicking the appearance and/or behavior of a harmless or beneficial model in order to avoid being correctly identified by its prey. The crab spider genus Phrynarachne is often cited as a textbook example of masquerading as bird droppings (BDs) in order to avoid predation. However, Phrynarachne spiders may also aggressively mimic BDs in order to deceive potential prey. To date, there is no experimental evidence to support aggressive mimicry in masquerading crab spiders; therefore, we performed a field survey, a manipulative field experiment, and visual modeling to test this hypothesis using Phrynarachne ceylonica. We compared prey-attraction rates among BDs, spiders, and control empty leaves in the field. We found that although all prey combined and agromyzid dipterans, in particular, were attracted to BDs at a higher rate than to spiders, other dipterans and hymenopterans were attracted to BDs at a similar rate as to spiders. Both spiders and BDs attracted insects at a significantly higher rate than did control leaves. As predicted, prey was attracted to experimentally blackened or whitened spiders significantly less frequently than to unmanipulated spiders. Finally, visual modeling suggested that spiders and BDs can be detected by dipterans and hymenopterans against background leaves, but they are indistinguishable from each other. Taken together, our results suggest that insects lured by spiders may misidentify them as BDs, and bird-dropping masquerading may serve as aggressive mimicry in addition to predator avoidance in P. ceylonica.
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Affiliation(s)
- Long Yu
- State Key Laboratory of Biocatalysis and Enzyme Engineering of China & Centre for Behavioural Ecology & Evolution, School of Life Sciences, Hubei University, Wuhan 430062, Hubei, China
| | - Xin Xu
- State Key Laboratory of Biocatalysis and Enzyme Engineering of China & Centre for Behavioural Ecology & Evolution, School of Life Sciences, Hubei University, Wuhan 430062, Hubei, China
- College of Life Sciences, Hunan Normal University, Changsha 410006, Hunan, China
| | - Zengtao Zhang
- State Key Laboratory of Biocatalysis and Enzyme Engineering of China & Centre for Behavioural Ecology & Evolution, School of Life Sciences, Hubei University, Wuhan 430062, Hubei, China
| | | | - Xiaodong Yang
- CAS Key Laboratory of Tropical Forest Ecology, Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Yunnan 666303, China
| | - Daiqin Li
- Department of Biological Sciences, National University of Singapore, 14 Science Drive 4, 117543, Singapore
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Kemp DJ, Edwards W, White TE. Captivating color: evidence for optimal stimulus design in a polymorphic prey lure. Behav Ecol 2022. [DOI: 10.1093/beheco/arac034] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/20/2022] Open
Abstract
Abstract
Many species – humans included – employ color as an instrument of deception. One intriguing example of this resides in the conspicuous abstract color patterns displayed on the bodies of female orb weaving spiders. These displays increase prey interception rates and thereby function at least as visual lures. Their chromatic properties however vary extensively, both across and within species, with discrete forms often co-existing in the manner of a stable polymorphism. Variation is principally expressed in terms of signal hue (color per se), but it is unclear how attractiveness scales with this property and if extant morphs are maximally attractive relative to a graded range of potential alternatives. We examined these questions by assessing catch rates among color-manipulated females of the dimorphic jeweled spider Gasteracantha fornicata in their natural webs. The manipulation altered dorsal appearance in a manner akin to adding six new variants of their existing white/yellow phenotypes. This magnified the natural variation in stimulus hue independently of chroma (saturation) across a range spanning most of the color spectrum. Catch rate varied across treatments in simple accordance with how greatly stimulus hue deviated from either of the two extant spider phenotypes. Predictions based on fly-perceived chromatic and achromatic background contrast were clearly unsupported despite dipterans constituting ~60 % of identifiable prey. This study supports the importance of signal coloration per se in G. fornicata and suggests that extant lure phenotypes reside in a broadly optimal spectral range for stimulating their aggregate prey community.
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Affiliation(s)
- Darrell J Kemp
- Department of Biological Sciences, Macquarie University, North Ryde, New South Wales, Australia
| | - Will Edwards
- College of Science and Engineering, James Cook University, Cairns, Queensland, Australia
| | - Thomas E White
- School of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
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Robledo-Ospina LE, Rao D. Dangerous visions: a review of visual antipredator strategies in spiders. Evol Ecol 2022. [DOI: 10.1007/s10682-022-10156-x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/04/2022]
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Messas YF, Bergamo PJ, Villanueva-Bonilla GA, da Silva Souza H, Gonzaga MO, Vasconcellos-Neto J. Deceptions of light and shadow: do the visual cues of Gasteracantha cancriformis (Araneae, Araneidae) improve prey interception by webs in the forest understory? ZOOL ANZ 2021. [DOI: 10.1016/j.jcz.2021.08.004] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/28/2022]
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Abstract
Abstract
Habitat use often differs among intraspecific individuals, and the degree to which individual animals use specific habitats, i.e. microhabitat breadth, can also vary. Variation in body colour sometimes emerges as dark vs. bright coloration, which can be related to habitat selectivity. The aim of this study was to examine whether darker animals prefer shady sites to avoid overheating from direct sunlight exposure, whereas brighter animals would use both shady and open sites. Orb-web spiders, Cyclosa argenteoalba, have a silver dorsal abdomen with black markings; the proportion of these black markings varies between 20 and 100% among individuals. In summer, there was less variation in the duration of direct sunlight hitting the webs of darker spiders compared with that of brighter spiders. This indicated a narrower microhabitat range for darker spiders, which preferred shady sites. This pattern was not observed in spring and autumn, when thermal conditions were less severe. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that when the temperature is high, darker animals are microhabitat specialists, whereas brighter animals are generalists. A previous study found that darker spiders capture more prey than brighter spiders, and the amount of black markings is considered to be a trade-off between foraging success and microhabitat availability.
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Conspicuous colours in a polymorphic orb-web spider: evidence of predator avoidance but not prey attraction. Anim Behav 2020. [DOI: 10.1016/j.anbehav.2020.08.022] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/23/2022]
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Santiago C, Green NF, Hamilton N, Endler JA, Osorio DC, Marshall NJ, Cheney KL. Does conspicuousness scale linearly with colour distance? A test using reef fish. Proc Biol Sci 2020; 287:20201456. [PMID: 32933449 DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2020.1456] [Citation(s) in RCA: 16] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/12/2022] Open
Abstract
To be effective, animal colour signals must attract attention-and therefore need to be conspicuous. To understand the signal function, it is useful to evaluate their conspicuousness to relevant viewers under various environmental conditions, including when visual scenes are cluttered by objects of varying colour. A widely used metric of colour difference (ΔS) is based on the receptor noise limited (RNL) model, which was originally proposed to determine when two similar colours appear different from one another, termed the discrimination threshold (or just noticeable difference). Estimates of the perceptual distances between colours that exceed this threshold-termed 'suprathreshold' colour differences-often assume that a colour's conspicuousness scales linearly with colour distance, and that this scale is independent of the direction in colour space. Currently, there is little behavioural evidence to support these assumptions. This study evaluated the relationship between ΔS and conspicuousness in suprathreshold colours using an Ishihara-style test with a coral reef fish, Rhinecanthus aculeatus. As our measure of conspicuousness, we tested whether fish, when presented with two colourful targets, preferred to peck at the one with a greater ΔS - from the average distractor colour. We found the relationship between ΔS and conspicuousness followed-- a sigmoidal function, with high ΔS colours perceived as equally conspicuous. We found that the relationship between ΔS and conspicuousness varied across colour space (i.e. for different hues). The sigmoidal detectability curve was little affected by colour variation in the background or when colour distance was calculated using a model that does not incorporate receptor noise. These results suggest that the RNL model may provide accurate estimates for perceptual distance for small suprathreshold distance colours, even in complex viewing environments, but must be used with caution with perceptual distances exceeding- -10 ΔS.
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Affiliation(s)
- Carl Santiago
- School of Biological Sciences, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland 4072 Australia
| | - Naomi F Green
- School of Biological Sciences, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland 4072 Australia.,Queensland Brain Institute, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland 4072 Australia
| | - Nadia Hamilton
- Queensland Brain Institute, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland 4072 Australia
| | - John A Endler
- Centre for Integrative Ecology, School of Life and Environmental Sciences, Deakin University, Waurn Ponds, Victoria 3216, Australia
| | - Daniel C Osorio
- School of Life Sciences, The University of Sussex, Brighton BN1 9QG, UK
| | - N Justin Marshall
- Queensland Brain Institute, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland 4072 Australia
| | - Karen L Cheney
- School of Biological Sciences, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland 4072 Australia.,Queensland Brain Institute, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland 4072 Australia
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Chamberland L, Salgado-Roa FC, Basco A, Crastz-Flores A, Binford GJ, Agnarsson I. Phylogeography of the widespread Caribbean spiny orb weaver Gasteracantha cancriformis. PeerJ 2020; 8:e8976. [PMID: 32391201 PMCID: PMC7196328 DOI: 10.7717/peerj.8976] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/07/2020] [Accepted: 03/24/2020] [Indexed: 12/18/2022] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Modern molecular analyses are often inconsistent with pre-cladistic taxonomic hypotheses, frequently indicating higher richness than morphological taxonomy estimates. Among Caribbean spiders, widespread species are relatively few compared to the prevalence of single island endemics. The taxonomic hypothesis Gasteracantha cancriformis circumscribes a species with profuse variation in size, color and body form. Distributed throughout the Neotropics, G. cancriformis is the only morphological species of Gasteracantha in the New World in this globally distributed genus. METHODS We inferred phylogenetic relationships across Neotropical populations of Gasteracantha using three target genes. Within the Caribbean, we estimated genetic diversity, population structure, and gene flow among island populations. RESULTS Our findings revealed a single widespread species of Gasteracantha throughout the Caribbean, G. cancriformis, while suggesting two recently divergent mainland populations that may represent separate species, diverging linages, or geographically isolated demes. The concatenated and COI (Cytochrome c oxidase subunit 1) phylogeny supported a Caribbean clade nested within the New World. Genetic variability was high between island populations for our COI dataset; however, gene flow was also high, especially between large, adjacent islands. We found structured genetic and morphological variation within G. cancriformis island populations; however, this variation does not reflect genealogical relationships. Rather, isolation by distance and local morphological adaptation may explain the observed variation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lisa Chamberland
- Department of Biology, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT, USA
| | - Fabian C. Salgado-Roa
- Biology Program, Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, Universidad del Rosario, Bogota, Colombia
| | - Alma Basco
- University of Puerto Rico at Rio Piedras, San Juan, Puerto Rico
| | | | | | - Ingi Agnarsson
- Department of Biology, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT, USA
- Department of Entomology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, USA
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Abstract
Abstract
Lures are deceptive strategies that exploit sensory biases in prey, usually mimicking a prey’s mate or food item. Several predators exploit plant–pollinator systems, where visual signals are an essential part of interspecific interactions. Many diurnal, and even nocturnal, orb-web spiders present conspicuous body coloration or bright color patches. These bright colors are regarded as color-based lures that exploit biases present in insect visual systems, possibly mimicking flower colors. The prey attraction hypothesis was proposed more than 20 years ago to explain orb-web spider coloration. Although most data gathered so far has corroborated the predictions of the prey attraction hypothesis, there are several studies that refute these predictions. We conducted a multilevel phylogenetic meta-analysis to assess the magnitude of the effect of conspicuous orb-web spider body coloration on prey attraction. We found a positive effect in favor of the prey attraction hypothesis; however, there was substantial heterogeneity between studies. Experimental designs comparing conspicuous spiders to painted spiders or empty webs did not explain between-studies heterogeneity. The lack of theoretical explanation behind the prey attraction hypothesis makes it challenging to address which components influence prey attraction. Future studies could evaluate whether color is part of a multicomponent signal and test alternative hypotheses for the evolution of spider colors, such as predator avoidance and thermoregulation.
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