Behaviour of colonial and solitary spiders of the theridiid species Anelosimus eximius

Christenson, Terry E.

doi:10.1016/s0003-3472(84)80148-7

Cited by 78 publications

(62 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…However, many societies, including humans [8,9], exhibit subdivision of labour without discrete morphological variants. Sex [10][11][12], body size [8,9,[13][14][15], age [16][17][18], group size [19] and consistent individual differences in behaviour [5,20,21] have all been associated with specialization in animal societies. Taken together, whether by morphological castes or otherwise, within-group behavioural variation is commonly interpreted as adaptive for animal societies, particularly insects [1-3, [22][23][24][25][26][27][28].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How within-group behavioural variation and task efficiency enhance fitness in a social group

2010

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How task specialization, individual task performance and within-group behavioural variation affects fitness is a longstanding and unresolved problem in our understanding of animal societies. In the temperate social spider, Anelosimus studiosus, colony members exhibit a behavioural polymorphism; females either exhibit an aggressive 'asocial' or docile 'social' phenotype. We assessed individual prey-capture success for both phenotypes, and the role of phenotypic composition on group-level prey-capture success for three prey size classes. We then estimated the effect of group phenotypic composition on fitness in a common garden, as inferred from individual egg-case masses. On average, asocial females were more successful than social females at capturing large prey, and colony-level prey-capture success was positively associated with the frequency of the asocial phenotype. Asocial colony members were also more likely to engage in prey-capture behaviour in group-foraging situations. Interestingly, our fitness estimates indicate females of both phenotypes experience increased fitness when occupying colonies containing unlike individuals. These results imply a reciprocal fitness benefit of within-colony behavioural variation, and perhaps division of labour in a spider society.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How within-group behavioural variation and task efficiency enhance fitness in a social group

2010

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“…Oster and Wilson's (1978 p. 56) review of the available data suggests that this pattern of growth and reproduction is typical ofsocial insects. This leads to another analogy with social insects: the extra females favored early in colony growth in the conditional spider model represent an increase in the worker force of the spider colony, since in all social spiders the females do the majority of the work in the web (Wickler, 1973;Brach, 1975;Tapia and De Vries, 1980;Lubin, 1982;Vollrath and Rohde-Arndt, 1983;Christenson, 1984). In this sense, a single female spider embodies both a worker and a reproductive.…”

Section: Social Spider Biologymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A single social unit typically contains hundreds or thousands of adult spiders living in a single large web, which is cooperatively built and maintained. Females do nearly all of the work, most females reproduce, and there is often shared responsibility for the tending of egg cases and rearing of young (Wickler, 1973;Lubin, 1982;Christenson, 1984). This advanced form ofcooperation, which I refer to here as "social," is technically classified as quasisocial, and is more complex than forms of sociality observed in other spiders (Wilson, 1971 pp.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…Recently, life histories and social biology were studied in Anelosimus eximius (Theridiidae) (Brach, 1975;Tapia and De Vries, 1980;Vollrath, 1982Vollrath, , 1986aVollrath, , 1986bVollrath and Rohde-Arndt, 1983;Christenson, 1984;Aviles, 1986b;Smith, 1986), Achaeranea wau (Theridiidae) (Lubin, 1982(Lubin, , 1986Lubin and Robinson, 1982;Lubin and Crozier, 1985), Agelena consociata (Agelenidae) (Darchen, 1978;Riechert, 1985;Riechert et al, 1986), and Mal/os gregalis (Dictynidae) (Jackson, 1978a(Jackson, , 1978bTietjen, 1986).…”

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confidence: 99%

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Demography and Sex Ratio in Social Spiders

Frank

1987

Evolution

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Abstract.-Spiders that live in large cooperative societies are scattered among several taxonomic groups. All quasisocial species appear to have female-biased sex ratios, while congeneric species with less advanced forms of sociality have I: I sex ratios. I present two sex-ratio models that examine the interaction between the genetic structure of populations and two aspects of colony demography-the changes as the colony grows larger in fecundity per female and in colony survivorship. In the first model, I assume that all members of the population produce the same sex ratio under all conditions (monomorphic strategy), while in the second model I assume that the sex ratio can be adjusted according to stage in the colony growth cycle (conditional strategy). The results of these models are consistent with the typically observed effects of within-sex competition among relatives; the sex ratio is biased toward the sex with less intense competition. In addition to these effects, a number of interesting interactions are revealed among relatedness, demography, and constraints of the sex-determining mechanism (monomorphic vs. conditional strategies). For example, when survivorship or fecundity increases as the colony grows larger, the predicted sex ratio becomes more female-biased. These demographic factors of changing viability and fecundity with changing colony size interact synergistically with relatedness, and the effect of this interaction on the sex ratio depends on the constraints of the sex-determining mechanism.There are two related roles for the models presented here. First, these models provide some general predictions about how complex variables of demography and population structure interact in shaping the evolution ofsocial spider sex ratios. Second, the development ofthe models illustrates a theoretical method that provides a simple description of complex interactions between demography and population structure, as well as an example of the synergistic interaction between relatedness and cooperation in the context of a particular life history.

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“…Anelosimus eximius (Theridiidae) is one of the most studied species of social spiders and thus it is an adequate model to develop the first step of our approach on social complexity using social network analysis. There are data available for this species on activity (e.g., CHRISTENSON, 1984), behavioral repertoire (e.g., VOLLRATH; ROHDE- ARNDT, 1983;CHRISTENSON, 1984) and phylogenetic relationships (e.g., AGNARSSON et al, 2006). This species is considered to be permanently social with stable colonies of as many as 10.000 spiders (AVILES, 1997).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Terminologia social e desenvolvimento de uma métrica de socialidade: redes sociais em aranhas

Neco¹

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Behaviour of colonial and solitary spiders of the theridiid species Anelosimus eximius

Cited by 78 publications

References 13 publications

How within-group behavioural variation and task efficiency enhance fitness in a social group

How within-group behavioural variation and task efficiency enhance fitness in a social group

Demography and Sex Ratio in Social Spiders

Terminologia social e desenvolvimento de uma métrica de socialidade: redes sociais em aranhas

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