Assessments and decisions in Metellina segmentata (Araneae: Metidae): evidence of a pheromone involved in mate guarding

Prenter, John; Elwood, Robert W.; Montgomery, W. Ian

doi:10.1007/bf00167058

Cited by 38 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…Bukowski, and L. Avilés, in preparation). These laboratory and field observations suggest that females may emit an agerelated sexual signal which attracts males and elicits courtship, as is known in other spiders (Suter and Renkes 1982;Prenter et al 1994). Consistent with this suggestion, we have found that the number of male and female pairs introduced in the laboratory on any given night of staged encounters was highly correlated with the percentage of courting males, as would be the case if an airborne pheromone stimulated courtship (T.C.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 87%

Asynchronous maturation of the sexes may limit close inbreeding in a subsocial spider

Bukowski¹,

Avilés²

2002

Can. J. Zool.

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We studied the temporal patterns of maturation and sexual receptivity of a subsocial spider, Anelosimus cf. jucundus, in southern Arizona. In subsocial spiders, sibling males and females share a common nest for a large portion of their life cycle, often only dispersing short distances close to the mating season. We found that, on average, male A. cf. jucundus matured 9 days earlier than females and that females did not become sexually receptive until 10 days following their final molt to maturity. The periods of sexual receptivity of sibling males and females, therefore, would be separated in time by a significant fraction of an adult male's life cycle. We also found significant asynchrony in maturation dates across nests and nest clusters at the two collection localities. We suggest that these temporal patterns may limit the opportunities for sibling males and females to mate with each other, thus explaining the apparent absence of mechanisms to discriminate against kin as mates in this species.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 87%

Asynchronous maturation of the sexes may limit close inbreeding in a subsocial spider

Bukowski¹,

Avilés²

2002

Can. J. Zool.

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“…An alternative explanation is that males were choosing larger and/or less hungry females (Thornhill 1976, Lawrence 1992). There exists evidence that males prefer larger or better‐fed females in mantids (Lawrence 1992, Maxwell 1998, 1999) and in a spider (Prenter et al 1994), but there is counter‐evidence in another spider (Riechert and Singer 1995). Sexual cannibalism and male choice are not mutually exclusive hypotheses to explain the pattern of male‐female cohabitation that we observed.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Intriguing compensation by adult female spiders for food limitation experienced as juveniles

Moya-Laraño¹,

Orta-Ocana²,

Barrientos³

et al. 2003

Oikos

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We conducted a field experiment to test for food limitation in immature stages, and its consequences for mature females, in the territorial, cannibalistic spider Lycosa tarentula (L.). Randomly selected antepenultimate juveniles were provided supplemental prey until they matured, at which time supplemental feeding ceased. Immature stages of L. tarentula are food‐limited. Supplemented juvenile spiders decreased foraging activity, disappeared at a lower rate and grew faster than the control spiders, which had been exposed only to ambient prey levels. Fed juvenile females were less hungry at maturity, as judged by an index of body condition, and showed higher mating success as adults, as judged by cohabitation rates with mature males. Foraging theory predicts that in order to compensate for residual effects of food limitation, adult female spiders that had experienced a shortage of prey as juveniles – the controls – would have to exhibit a greater increase in foraging activity upon maturing than the prey‐supplemented group. Contrary to expectation, the control females did not increase their foraging activity, but the previously fed females did forage more actively as adults. Furthermore, the difference in mass gain during the mating period between the two groups was opposite from what the difference in change in foraging activity would predict. Control females, the spiders that had not changed their foraging activity, gained mass more rapidly than the previously fed females, with the result that the two groups were similar in mass by the end of the mating period. We hypothesize that an increased rate of sexual cannibalism may have been one mechanism by which control females compensated for the food limitation that they had experienced as immatures.

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“…Most studies on spider pheromones are on female substances that function in the context of male attraction, in triggering courtship behaviour, and in species recognition . In Metellina segmentata (Tetragnathidae), the assessment of female quality (size and hence fecundity, as well as her nearness to moult) by males seems to be based on pheromonal cues (Prenter, Elwood & Montgomery, 1994). Sexual selection more probably acts on male signals, but male spider pheromones have barely been studied (Ross & Smith, 1979 ;Ayyagari & Tietjen, 1986).…”

Section: Female Choice and Male Competition : The Communicatory Cmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In Tetragnatha elongata, males prefer heavier females and females with higher body condition indices, traits that are correlated with the volume of her egg load and the proximity of oviposition (Danielson-François, Fetterer & Smallwood, 2002). In Metellina segmentata, males assess female quality (size and nearness to moult) before deciding on whether to guard or leave the female (Prenter et al, 1994). In the congeneric M. mengei, the guarding male adjusts his fight tactics against intruders according to the reproductive value of the female, increasing fight intensity and duration with his mate's body mass (Bridge, Elwood & Dick, 2000).…”

Section: Male Mate Choicementioning

confidence: 99%

Sexual selection research on spiders: progress and biases

2005

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The renaissance of interest in sexual selection during the last decades has fuelled an extraordinary increase of scientific papers on the subject in spiders. Research has focused both on the process of sexual selection itself, for example on the signals and various modalities involved, and on the patterns, that is the outcome of mate choice and competition depending on certain parameters. Sexual selection has most clearly been demonstrated in cases involving visual and acoustical signals but most spiders are myopic and mute, relying rather on vibrations, chemical and tactile stimuli. This review argues that research has been biased towards modalities that are relatively easily accessible to the human observer. Circumstantial and comparative evidence indicates that sexual selection working via substrate-borne vibrations and tactile as well as chemical stimuli may be common and widespread in spiders. Pattern-oriented research has focused on several phenomena for which spiders offer excellent model objects, like sexual size dimorphism, nuptial feeding, sexual cannibalism, and sperm competition. The accumulating evidence argues for a highly complex set of explanations for seemingly uniform patterns like size dimorphism and sexual cannibalism. Sexual selection appears involved as well as natural selection and mechanisms that are adaptive in other contexts only. Sperm competition has resulted in a plethora of morphological and behavioural adaptations, and simplistic models like those linking reproductive morphology with behaviour and sperm priority patterns in a straightforward way are being replaced by complex models involving an array of parameters. Male mating costs are increasingly being documented in spiders, and sexual selection by male mate choice is discussed as a potential result. Research on sexual selection in spiders has come a long way since Darwin, whose spider examples are reanalysed in the context of contemporary knowledge, but the same biases and methodological constraints have persisted almost unchanged through the current boom of research.

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Assessments and decisions in Metellina segmentata (Araneae: Metidae): evidence of a pheromone involved in mate guarding

Cited by 38 publications

References 17 publications

Asynchronous maturation of the sexes may limit close inbreeding in a subsocial spider

Asynchronous maturation of the sexes may limit close inbreeding in a subsocial spider

Intriguing compensation by adult female spiders for food limitation experienced as juveniles

Sexual selection research on spiders: progress and biases

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