Colony personality composition alters colony-level plasticity and magnitude of defensive behaviour in a social spider

Abstract

The ways in which animal societies respond to threat has enormous consequences for their success. In the present study, we investigated how group personality composition in social spiders (Stegodyphus dumicola) alters groups' average response towards predators and how their responses change with experience with important predators, Anoplolepis custodiens ants. We found that colonies composed of a mixture of bold and shy personality types exhibited twice as much defensive web-making behaviour as other colony compositions. Colony defensive behaviour was also more temporally stable following experience with predators for mixed colonies than for either monotypic composition (all shy or all bold). Colonies composed of bold individuals were particularly erratic in their defensive behaviour over time. Thus, colony composition altered colony-level plasticity in response to experience with one of their most voracious predators. We additionally observed the behaviour of marked individuals within colonies to determine which individual traits were associated with task participation during encounters with predators. Individual morphology and boldness both predicted task participation at the individual level, with boldness being negatively associated with participation in the attack sequence, but positively associated with defensive silk making. Low body condition also proved to be important for predicting participation in any task. Lastly, despite a tight association between colony composition and colony defensive behaviour, we found no evidence that colony composition impacted colony survival during ant attacks in situ. Instead, older and more established nests were positively associated with colony persistence during attacks.

Individual differences in boldness influence patterns of social interactions and the transmission of cuticular bacteria among group-mates

“…In colonies of S. dumicola, the execution of collective behaviours such as prey capture [33][34][35][36] and antipredator defences [37] is associated with heterogeneity among individuals in their boldness, suggesting that boldness is a reliable indicator of individuals' role in these societies. Therefore, we examined assortativity according to boldness by observing marked individuals in experimental colonies.…”

Selection for Collective Aggressiveness Favors Social Susceptibility in Social Spiders

“…Female social spiders cooperate in collective prey capture and food sharing, web maintenance, and alloparental care [27]. S. dumicola also exhibits temporally consistent individual differences in behavior that are associated with the roles that individuals play in groups [28, 29]. Prior lab studies on S. dumicola have shown that a colony’s boldest group member wields a large influence over the behavior and success of its colony.…”

“…Moreover, individual differences in boldness are tightly linked with these spiders’ tendency to participate in a variety of cooperative tasks, including colony defense [29], prey capture [28], and web construction and maintenance [49]. The majority (90%–95%) of adult S. dumicola exhibit a shy behavioral type (latency to emerge and resume movement > 600 s) [47].…”

The multidimensional behavioural hypervolumes of two interacting species predict their space use and survival

“…Much prior work has related animal personality to various aspects of individuals' ecology (Johnson et al, 2015; Sih et al, 2012; Wolf & Weissing, 2012), such as their body condition (Johnson, Miles, Trubl, & Hagenmaier, 2014; Wright, Keiser, & Pruitt, 2016) and social niche (Laskowski & Pruitt, 2014), by examining only one personality trait at a time (Smith & Blumstein, 2008; Sweeney et al, 2013). Here we used a multitrait approach to examine whether the behavioural hypervolumes occupied by groups of individuals shaped both intraspecific and interspecific interactions.…”