Does nutritional status constrain adoption of more costly and less risky foraging behaviour in an Amazonian shelter-building spider?

Abstract

Individual nutritional status may increase marginal foraging costs and potentially drive animal foraging strategies. Here, we investigated how it might affect foraging strategies of the shelter-building spider Hingstepeira folisecens (Hingston 1932) (Araneidae). This spider can catch prey using two strategies with different relative costs: 'pulling' (higher energy expenditure) and 'pursuing' (lower energy expenditure). We conducted experiments by offering prey at a fixed distance from the shelter entrance to investigate if spiders with lower nutritional status would exhibit riskier but less costly foraging behaviours more frequently than spiders with better status. The nutritional status did not affect the foraging behaviours adopted by H. folisecens. Additionally, the frequency of both foraging behaviours was similar. Therefore, our results did not provide any evidence that individual nutritional status is a factor driving the selection of foraging behaviours in H. folisecens. We suggest that the malnourished spiders should adopt additional strategies to compensate for the costs of pulling behaviour, especially when prey is far from the shelter. Furthermore, it is possible that other factors, like relative prey size in relation to web size, can help us to understand the threshold that determines when such individuals must adopt one of two possible behaviours.

Predation avoidance behavior and web investment are not constrained by individual nutritional status in a shelter-building spider species

“…Other studies also did not nd an effect of individual nutritional status on the foraging behavior of spiders. The shelter-building spider Hingstepeira folisecens (Araneidae) can exhibit two different foraging behaviors (Moura et al, 2016). When prey falls in the web, the spider can pull the silk threads until they get close to the shelter entrance to capture them (pulling behavior) or abandon the shelter to attack the prey and move them to the shelter (pursuing behavior).…”

“…Therefore, spiders can adopt foraging strategies to minimize the exposure time outside the shelter in periods of higher activity of their predators (Scharf et al 2011;Pekár 2014). Most predators are visually oriented and diurnal, such as birds (Gunnarsson and Wiklander 2015), lizards (Spiller and Schoener, 1988), hunting wasps from the Crabronidae family, specialized in capturing spiders (Moura et al 2019), as well as other spider species (Moura et al 2016;Meira et al 2021). Therefore, shelter-building spiders are more likely to be predated when capturing prey outside the shelter during the day.…”

“…The presence of these parasitoids in the webs was recorded in the late afternoon, indicating that these natural enemies have diurnal or crepuscular habits(Kloss et al, 2018). Most of the other spider predators are visually oriented animals, such as predatory wasps, birds, damsel ies, and other araneophagic spiders, and shelterbuilding spiders consistently use behavioral strategies to minimize their diurnal exposure(Manicom et al 2008;Moura et al 2016). Therefore, the more hesitant and careful behavior observed in M. laticeps is possibly associated with the high activity of visually oriented parasitoids and predators in the environment during the day.…”

Specialisation in prey capture drives coexistence among sympatric spider‐hunting wasps

“…Spider‐hunting wasps are usually confronted with cognitive and physical challenges when capturing many prey taxa, because spiders can use several different defensive strategies to avoid predation, such as the use of shelters (Moura et al , ), protective web resources (Gonzaga & Vasconcellos‐Neto, ), camouflage (Xavier et al , ), and mimicry (Pekár, ). In addition, spiders present a wide range of size, habitat choice, foraging strategy (sit‐and‐wait or wandering), web inclination in web‐building species, and sociality level (aggregated or solitary) (Purcell et al , ; Viera & Gonzaga, ).…”

Food, shelter or competitors? Overlapping of life stages and host plant selection in a Neotropical stink bug species

“…Consequently, recent studies have proposed an integration of optimal foraging and optimal oviposition theory in plant-insect interactions to explain these findings (Scheirs and De Bruyn 2002). The optimal foraging theory predicts that foraging behaviors should be based on energetic balance between the costs and benefits of location and acquisition of resources (MacArthur and Pianka 1966;Pyke 1984;Perry and Pianka 1997;Moura et al 2016). According to this approach, phytophagous insects may choose oviposition sites that enhance their own performance regardless of the consequences for offspring survival (Mayhew 1997(Mayhew , 2001Scheirs and De Bruyn 2002).…”