Collective Decision-making in Social Spiders: Dragline-mediated Amplification Process Acts as a Recruitment Mechanism

Saffre, Fabrice; Furey, Robert; Krafft, Bertrand; Deneubourg, Jean‐Louis

doi:10.1006/jtbi.1999.0927

Cited by 50 publications

(29 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…Thus, the emitter and the receiver do not need to be present simultaneously to exchange information (Hölldobler and Wilson, 1990;Nieh, 2004;Reinhard and Kaib, 2001). Recruitment pheromones are not, however, restricted to the social insects and are found in a variety of taxa (Chapman, 1998;Wyatt, 2003) including caterpillars (Fitzgerald and Costa, 1986;Fitzgerald, 1995), social spiders (Lubin and Robinson, 1982;Vollrath, 1982;Saffre et al, 1999) and mammals (Galef and Buckley, 1996;Judd and Sherman, 1996).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The role of multiple pheromones in food recruitment by ants

Dussutour

Nicolis

Shephard

et al. 2009

Journal of Experimental Biology

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SUMMARYIn this paper we investigate the foraging activity of an invasive ant species, the big headed ant Pheidole megacephala. We establish that the ants' behavior is consistent with the use of two different pheromone signals, both of which recruit nestmates. Our experiments suggest that during exploration the ants deposit a long-lasting pheromone that elicits a weak recruitment of nestmates, while when exploiting food the ants deposit a shorter lasting pheromone eliciting a much stronger recruitment. We further investigate experimentally the role of these pheromones under both static and dynamic conditions and develop a mathematical model based on the hypothesis that exploration locally enhances exploitation, while exploitation locally suppresses exploration. The model and the experiments indicate that exploratory pheromone allows the colony to more quickly mobilize foragers when food is discovered. Furthermore, the combination of two pheromones allows colonies to track changing foraging conditions more effectively than would a single pheromone. In addition to the already known causes for the ecological success of invasive ant species, our study suggests that their opportunistic strategy of rapid food discovery and ability to react to changes in the environment may have strongly contributed to their dominance over native species.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The role of multiple pheromones in food recruitment by ants

Dussutour

Nicolis

Shephard

et al. 2009

Journal of Experimental Biology

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“…Similarly, spiders modify their environment by laying down silk threads which again modifies the behaviour of the spiders encountering them (Krafft and Cookson, 2012). Social spiders and spiderlings of solitary species appear to aggregate in response to specific dragline attachment patterns and silk densities (Saffre et al, 1999;Jeanson et al, 2004). Orb-web spiders could thus rely purely on information obtained from the silk threads that it trails behind during site exploration (Zschokke, 1996), similar to how they primarily rely on information gained from the distance to the auxiliary spiral and to previously laid sticky spiral threads for the exact placement of threads during construction of the sticky spiral (Hingston, 1920;Peters, 1970;Eberhard, 2012;Eberhard and Hesselberg, 2012).…”

Section: The Stigmergy Hypothesismentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploration behaviour and behavioural flexibility in orb-web spiders: A review

Hesselberg

2015

Current Zoology

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Orb-web spiders and their webs constitute an ideal model system in which to study behavioural flexibility and spatial cognition in invertebrates due to the easily quantifiable nature of the orb web. A large number of studies demonstrate how spiders are able to modify the geometry of their webs in response to a range of different conditions including the ability to adapt their webs to spatial constraints. However, the mechanisms behind this impressive web-building flexibility in these cognitively limited animals remain poorly explored. One possible mechanism though may be spatial learning during the spiders' exploration of their immediate surroundings. This review discusses the importance of exploration behaviour, the reliance on simple behavioural rules, and the use of already laid threads as guidelines for web-building in orb-web spiders. The focus is on the spiders' ability to detect and adapt their webs to space limitations and other spatial disruptions. I will also review the few published studies on how spatial information is gathered during the exploration phase and discuss the possibility of the use of 'cognitive map'-like processes in spiders. Finally, the review provides suggestions for designing experimental studies to shed light on whether spiders gather metric information during the site exploration (cognitive map hypothesis) or rely on more simple binary information in combination with previously laid threads to build their webs (stigmergy hypothesis) [Current Zoology 61 (2): 313-327, 2015].

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“…In many gregarious species, byproducts of individual activities can be used as trailing cues in diverse contexts to ensure foraging (Galef and Buckley, 1996), aggregation (Chapman, 1998), collective migration (Saffre et al, 1999) or homing (Chelazzi et al, 1990).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Path selection in cockroaches

Jeanson

Deneubourg

2006

Journal of Experimental Biology

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SUMMARY In gregarious insects, the exploration and the use of the home range can involve both individual navigational abilities and/or chemical trails. Trail formation can result from an active laying of pheromones but can also derive from the incidental deposition of chemical cues. In this study, we investigated whether scent trails can influence path selection in the cockroach Blattella germanica (L.). Experiments were designed to separate the role of prior experience based on the orientation of the path and the presence of trails. In a first phase, cockroaches were able to access freely one or two branches of a platform during a 48 h period. In a second phase, cockroaches were offered a binary choice between one marked and one clean branch, or between two clean branches. In the absence of trails,cockroaches prefer the novel orientation but in the presence of a trail previously laid by the same group of individuals, they prefer the path with the trail, irrespective of orientation. However, cockroaches tended to avoid trails laid by a different group of cockroaches. Overall, our results indicate that both scent cues and response to novelty influence, weakly but significantly, path selection in cockroaches. The plausible nature of scent marks used by cockroaches is discussed. Our study suggests that the influence of incident trailing cues can be modulated by learning to support a flexible orientation strategy depending on individual experience.

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Collective Decision-making in Social Spiders: Dragline-mediated Amplification Process Acts as a Recruitment Mechanism

Cited by 50 publications

References 26 publications

The role of multiple pheromones in food recruitment by ants

The role of multiple pheromones in food recruitment by ants

Exploration behaviour and behavioural flexibility in orb-web spiders: A review

Path selection in cockroaches

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