Contributions of juvenile and adult diet to the lifetime reproductive success and lifespan of a spider

Abstract

Food availability can vary widely for animals in nature and can have large eff ects on growth, reproduction and survival. While the consequences of food limitation for animals have been extensively studied, signifi cant questions still remain including how ontogenetic variation in food availability contributes to lifetime reproductive success. We tested the eff ects of juvenile and adult food limitation on the lifetime reproductive success and lifespan of bridge spiders, Larinioides sclopetarius . Food availability was manipulated (low or high) over the entire juvenile and adult stage in a full-factorial design and reproductive output and lifespan were measured. Juvenile and adult food limitation both reduced lifetime egg and hatchling production with eff ect sizes that were not signifi cantly diff erent from each other. Unlike some other arthropods, where juvenile food limitation reduces fecundity by reducing adult body size, body size was not aff ected by juvenile diet in bridge spiders. Clutch size was also signifi cantly reduced by both juvenile and adult food limitation. Th e eff ect of adult diet on clutch size was stronger than that of juvenile diet. Juvenile and adult food limitation both extended total lifespan, and adult food limitation extended adult longevity (i.e. time from maturation to death). However, juvenile food limitation decreased adult longevity, in contrast to what would be predicted by dietary or caloric restriction. Compensatory feeding and growth are widely recognized mechanisms through which animals can ameliorate some of the negative eff ects of periods of food limitation. Yet our results combined with studies of a range of other species suggest that there may be lasting consequences of juvenile food limitation on lifetime reproductive success that cannot be compensated for by adult feeding in some species.

Persistence and survival of the spider Nephila plumipes in cities: do increased prey resources drive the success of an urban exploiter?

“…Food restriction during spider development can decrease the longevity of adults (Kleinteich et al 2015), so an abundance of small prey during development could lead to increased survival. In comparison, mature Nephila spiders have an increased dependence on large prey (Higgins and Goodnight 2011) and often ignore smaller insects.…”

Larval and adult nutrition effects on reproductive traits in the red flour beetle

“…Boggs & Freeman, and references therein). Our results suggest that in T. castaneum , the causal link between juvenile nutrition and adult reproduction is probably related to the composition, rather than size, of the adult body (Colasurdo et al ., ; Kleinteich, Wilder & Schneider, ). However, the mechanisms involved require further investigations.…”

Low marine food levels mitigate high migration costs in anadromous populations

“…1A). Such bias toward increased growth at the expense of energy storage following an increase in food also occurs in various other vertebrate (Auer, Arendt, Chandramouli, & Reznick, 2010;Sinervo & Doughty, 1996;Taborsky, 2006) and invertebrate (Kleinteich, Wilder, & Schneider, 2015;Zeller & Koella, 2016) species. Individuals of these species compensate their growth after an experimental period of food rationing and reach similar sizes as when experiencing continuously high food levels, at the expense of lower fecundity ( Fig.…”

“…The right panel summarizes the observations for individuals before and after the habitat switch independent of their length. B: Effect of an experimental step-up change in food provisioning on fecundity per unit of biomass in six species(Auer et al, 2010;Kleinteich et al, 2015;Sinervo & Doughty, 1996;Taborsky, 2006;Zeller & Koella, 2016) (data for D. magna fromKooijman, unpublished). To allow comparison between species the mean fecundity of control individuals (constant high food) is normalized to 1.…”