Journal ArticleDOI
The role of experience in web-building spiders (Araneidae)
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TLDR
Experienced web-building spiders constructed more asymmetric webs than conspecifics deprived of any prior building experience over a period of several months, revealing that experience can contribute to intraspecific as well as to individual variations in web design.Abstract:
A typical feature of vertical orb-webs is the ‘top/bottom’ asymmetry, where the lower web region is larger than the upper web region. This asymmetry may improve prey capture success, because, sitting in the hub of the web, a spider can reach prey entangled below the hub faster than prey entangled in the area above the hub. While web asymmetry is known to vary intraspecifically, we tested if this variation also exists at the individual level and whether it is the result of experience, using two orb-web spider species, Argiope keyserlingi and Larinioides sclopetarius. The results reveal that experienced web-building spiders constructed more asymmetric webs than conspecifics deprived of any prior building experience over a period of several months. Experienced individuals invested more silk material into the web region below the hub, which covered a larger area. Moreover, web asymmetry was also influenced by previous prey capture experiences, as spiders increased the lower region of the web if it intercepted the most prey over a period of 6 days. Consequently, spiders may be able to use long-term web-building experience as well as short-term prey capture experience to build better traps. In contrast to previous views of spiders, experience can contribute to intraspecific as well as to individual variations in web design.read more
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Development of tool use in New Caledonian crows: inherited action patterns and social influences
TL;DR: Observations are consistent with the hypothesis that individual learning, cultural transmission and creative problem solving all contribute to the acquisition of the tool-oriented behaviours in the wild, but inherited species-typical action patterns have a greater role than has been recognized.
Journal ArticleDOI
Foraging decisions and behavioural flexibility in trap-building predators: a review.
TL;DR: Evidence is provided that the behaviour of trap‐building predators is not stereotypic or fixed as was once commonly accepted, rather it can vary greatly, depending on the individual's internal state and its interactions with external environmental factors.
Journal ArticleDOI
Setting tool use within the context of animal construction behaviour
Mike Hansell,Graeme D. Ruxton +1 more
TL;DR: It is suggested that tools are actually seldom very useful compared with anatomical adaptations and that focussing on animal tool use primarily in terms of human evolution can lead to important insights regarding the ecological and cognitive abilities of non-human tool users being overlooked.
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Extended spider cognition
TL;DR: It is concluded that the web threads and configurations are integral parts of the cognitive systems, enhancing innovation through cognitive connectivity to variable habitat features and generating the selective pressures that help to shape the evolving cognitive system.
Journal ArticleDOI
Giant wood spider Nephila pilipes alters silk protein in response to prey variation.
TL;DR: Results of this study indicated that orb-weaving spiders can alter dragline protein in response to prey variations.
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Martin Hammer,Randolf Menzel +1 more
TL;DR: The results suggest that the neuromodulator OA has the capacity of inducing associative learning in an insect brain and suggest the antennal lobes and the calyces as at least partially independent sites of associating odors that may contribute differently to learning and memory consolidation.
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Ecological and evolutionary aspects of learning in phytophagous insects
TL;DR: In this review, work on learning in phytophagous insects is placed into the broader perspective of learning in a variety of insects including bees and parasitic wasps, and the ecological significance of learning with respect to both the traditional categories erected by behaviorists and the more recent concept of programed learning developed by ethologists.
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Function and Phylogeny of Spider Webs
TL;DR: A general discussion of the designs and functions of the silk structures spiders use to capture prey has not been attempted since the book of Witt et al (319).