Ecological and evolutionary studies on spiders have been featured prominently throughout the contemporary behavio- ral syndromes movement. Here we review the behavioral syndromes literature devoted to spiders, and ide...Ecological and evolutionary studies on spiders have been featured prominently throughout the contemporary behavio- ral syndromes movement. Here we review the behavioral syndromes literature devoted to spiders, and identify some ways in which behavioral syndromes can impact the function of spiders in ecological communities. We further highlight three general themes within the behavioral syndromes literature for which spiders have served as front running model systems： （1） how trait correlations beget performance trade-offs, （2） the influence that behavioral trait variants have on interspecific interactions and （3） mechanisms that aid in maintaining behavioral variation within-and among-populations. Research on behavioral syndromes con-tinues to grow at an impressive rate, and we feel the success of behavioral syndromes studies in spiders bodes well for their con-tinued prominence.展开更多
Populations of animals comprise many individuals,interacting in multiple contexts,and displaying heterogeneous behaviors.The interactions among individuals can often create population dynamics that are fundamentally d...Populations of animals comprise many individuals,interacting in multiple contexts,and displaying heterogeneous behaviors.The interactions among individuals can often create population dynamics that are fundamentally deterministic yet display unpredictable dynamics.Animal populations can,therefore,be thought of as complex systems.Complex systems display properties such as nonlinearity and uncertainty and show emergent properties that cannot be explained by a simple sum of the interacting components.Any system where entities compete,cooperate,or interfere with one another may possess such qualities,making animal populations similar on many levels to complex systems.Some fields are already embracing elements of complexity to help understand the dynamics of animal populations,but a wider application of complexity science in ecology and evolution has not occurred.We review here how approaches from complexity science could be applied to the study of the interactions and behavior of individuals within animal populations and highlight how this way of thinking can enhance our understanding of population dynamics in animals.We focus on 8 key characteristics of complex systems:hierarchy,heterogeneity,selforganization,openness,adaptation,memory,nonlinearity,and uncertainty.For each topic we discuss how concepts from complexity theory are applicable in animal populations and emphasize the unique insights they provide.We finish by outlining outstanding questions or predictions to be evaluated using behavioral and ecological data.Our goal throughout this article is to familiarize animal ecologists with the basics of each of these concepts and highlight the new perspectives that they could bring to variety of subfields.展开更多
Contact with environmental microbes are arguably the most common species interaction in which any animal participates.Studies have noted diverse relationships between hosts and resident microbes,which can have strong ...Contact with environmental microbes are arguably the most common species interaction in which any animal participates.Studies have noted diverse relationships between hosts and resident microbes,which can have strong consequences for host development,physiology,and behavior. Many of these studies focus specifically on pathogens or beneficial microbes,while the benign microbes,of which the majority of bacteria could be described,are often ignored.Here,we explore the nature of the relationships between the grass spider Agelenopsis pennsylvanica and bacteria collected from their cuticles in situ.First,using culture-based methods,we identified a portion of the cuticular bacterial communities that are naturally associated with these spiders.Then,we topically exposed spiders to a subset of these bacterial monocultures to estimate how bacterial exposure may alter 3 host behavioral traits:boldness,aggressiveness,and activity level.We conducted these behavioral assays 3 times before and 3 times after topical application,and compared the changes observed in each trait with spiders that were exposed to a sterile control treatment.We identified 9 species of bacteria from the cuticles of 36 spiders and exposed groups of 20 spiders to 1 of 4 species of cuticular bacteria.We found that exposure to Dermacoccus nishinomiyaensis and Staphylococcus saprophyticus was associated with a lO-fold decrease in the foraging aggressiveness of spiders toward prey in their web.Since bacterial exposure did not have survival consequences for hosts,these data suggest that interactions with cuticular bacteria,even non- pathogenic bacteria,could alter host behavior.展开更多
文摘Ecological and evolutionary studies on spiders have been featured prominently throughout the contemporary behavio- ral syndromes movement. Here we review the behavioral syndromes literature devoted to spiders, and identify some ways in which behavioral syndromes can impact the function of spiders in ecological communities. We further highlight three general themes within the behavioral syndromes literature for which spiders have served as front running model systems： （1） how trait correlations beget performance trade-offs, （2） the influence that behavioral trait variants have on interspecific interactions and （3） mechanisms that aid in maintaining behavioral variation within-and among-populations. Research on behavioral syndromes con-tinues to grow at an impressive rate, and we feel the success of behavioral syndromes studies in spiders bodes well for their con-tinued prominence.
文摘Populations of animals comprise many individuals,interacting in multiple contexts,and displaying heterogeneous behaviors.The interactions among individuals can often create population dynamics that are fundamentally deterministic yet display unpredictable dynamics.Animal populations can,therefore,be thought of as complex systems.Complex systems display properties such as nonlinearity and uncertainty and show emergent properties that cannot be explained by a simple sum of the interacting components.Any system where entities compete,cooperate,or interfere with one another may possess such qualities,making animal populations similar on many levels to complex systems.Some fields are already embracing elements of complexity to help understand the dynamics of animal populations,but a wider application of complexity science in ecology and evolution has not occurred.We review here how approaches from complexity science could be applied to the study of the interactions and behavior of individuals within animal populations and highlight how this way of thinking can enhance our understanding of population dynamics in animals.We focus on 8 key characteristics of complex systems:hierarchy,heterogeneity,selforganization,openness,adaptation,memory,nonlinearity,and uncertainty.For each topic we discuss how concepts from complexity theory are applicable in animal populations and emphasize the unique insights they provide.We finish by outlining outstanding questions or predictions to be evaluated using behavioral and ecological data.Our goal throughout this article is to familiarize animal ecologists with the basics of each of these concepts and highlight the new perspectives that they could bring to variety of subfields.
文摘Contact with environmental microbes are arguably the most common species interaction in which any animal participates.Studies have noted diverse relationships between hosts and resident microbes,which can have strong consequences for host development,physiology,and behavior. Many of these studies focus specifically on pathogens or beneficial microbes,while the benign microbes,of which the majority of bacteria could be described,are often ignored.Here,we explore the nature of the relationships between the grass spider Agelenopsis pennsylvanica and bacteria collected from their cuticles in situ.First,using culture-based methods,we identified a portion of the cuticular bacterial communities that are naturally associated with these spiders.Then,we topically exposed spiders to a subset of these bacterial monocultures to estimate how bacterial exposure may alter 3 host behavioral traits:boldness,aggressiveness,and activity level.We conducted these behavioral assays 3 times before and 3 times after topical application,and compared the changes observed in each trait with spiders that were exposed to a sterile control treatment.We identified 9 species of bacteria from the cuticles of 36 spiders and exposed groups of 20 spiders to 1 of 4 species of cuticular bacteria.We found that exposure to Dermacoccus nishinomiyaensis and Staphylococcus saprophyticus was associated with a lO-fold decrease in the foraging aggressiveness of spiders toward prey in their web.Since bacterial exposure did not have survival consequences for hosts,these data suggest that interactions with cuticular bacteria,even non- pathogenic bacteria,could alter host behavior.
