Long-term behavioural consistency in prey capture but not in web maintenance in a social spider

Beleyur, Thejasvi; Bellur, Divya Uma; Somanathan, Hema

doi:10.1007/s00265-015-1915-z

Cited by 21 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 56 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Given the intellectual and capital investments required of some subsistence activities, this variation could potentially be explained by long-term returns to specialization (Schniter et al 2015 ). More generally, at a time when individual-level behavioral variation and personality are attracting attention from behavioral ecologists (Bell et al 2009 ; Beleyur et al 2015 ), the present statistical approaches align with efforts to use multilevel models to quantify the repeatability of behavior (Nakagawa and Schiezeth 2010 ; Dingemanse and Dochtermann 2013 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 84%

Multinomial analysis of behavior: statistical methods

Koster

McElreath

2017

Behav Ecol Sociobiol

119

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Behavioral ecologists frequently use observational methods, such as instantaneous scan sampling, to record the behavior of animals at discrete moments in time. We develop and apply multilevel, multinomial logistic regression models for analyzing such data. These statistical methods correspond to the multinomial character of the response variable while also accounting for the repeated observations of individuals that characterize behavioral datasets. Correlated random effects potentially reveal individual-level trade-offs across behaviors, allowing for models that reveal the extent to which individuals who regularly engage in one behavior also exhibit relatively more or less of another behavior. Using an example dataset, we demonstrate the estimation of these models using Hamiltonian Monte Carlo algorithms, as implemented in the RStan package in the R statistical environment. The supplemental files include a coding script and data that demonstrate auxiliary functions to prepare the data, estimate the models, summarize the posterior samples, and generate figures that display model predictions. We discuss possible extensions to our approach, including models with random slopes to allow individual-level behavioral strategies to vary over time and the need for models that account for temporal autocorrelation. These models can potentially be applied to a broad class of statistical analyses by behavioral ecologists, focusing on other polytomous response variables, such as behavior, habitat choice, or emotional states.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s00265-017-2363-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 84%

Multinomial analysis of behavior: statistical methods

Koster

McElreath

2017

Behav Ecol Sociobiol

119

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Here, we use the social spider Stegodyphus dumicola as a model to evaluate how individual traits, group phenotypic composition and social network structure influence the degree of group‐wide transmission of a GFP‐labelled cuticular bacterium ( Pantoea sp.). Individual Stegodyphus vary in a diagnostic behavioural trait, “boldness,” that is consistent across long periods and is associated with individuals’ propensity to participate in several collective behaviours (Beleyur, Bellur, & Somanathan, ; Grinsted, Pruitt, Settepani, & Bilde, ; Keiser, Jones, Modlmeier, & Pruitt, ; Wright, Keiser, & Pruitt, ). Previous experiments demonstrate that transmission of cuticular bacteria between pairs of individuals is biased and directional: more likely to occur from bolder to shyer spiders (Keiser, Pinter‐Wollman, et al., ), and the degree of group‐wide transmission depends on the phenotypic composition of the unexposed individuals in a colony (Keiser, Howell, et al., ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The primary case is not enough: Variation among individuals, groups and social networks modify bacterial transmission dynamics

Keiser

Pinter‐Wollman

Ziemba

et al. 2017

Journal of Animal Ecology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The traits of the primary case of an infectious disease outbreak, and the circumstances for their aetiology, potentially influence the trajectory of transmission dynamics. However, these dynamics likely also depend on the traits of the individuals with whom the primary case interacts.We used the social spider Stegodyphus dumicola to test how the traits of the primary case, group phenotypic composition and group size interact to facilitate the transmission of a GFP-labelled cuticular bacterium. We also compared bacterial transmission across experimentally generated “daisy-chain” vs. “star” networks of social interactions. Finally, we compared social network structure across groups of different sizes.Groups of 10 spiders experienced more bacterial transmission events compared to groups of 30 spiders, regardless of groups’ behavioural composition. Groups containing only one bold spider experienced the lowest levels of bacterial transmission regardless of group size. We found no evidence for the traits of the primary case influencing any transmission dynamics. In a second experiment, bacteria were transmitted to more individuals in experimentally induced star networks than in daisy-chains, on which transmission never exceeded three steps. In both experimental network types, transmission success depended jointly on the behavioural traits of the interacting individuals; however, the behavioural traits of the primary case were only important for transmission on star networks.Larger social groups exhibited lower interaction density (i.e. had a low ratio of observed to possible connections) and were more modular, i.e. they had more connections between nodes within a subgroup and fewer connections across subgroups. Thus, larger groups may restrict transmission by forming fewer interactions and by isolating subgroups that interacted with the primary case.These findings suggest that accounting for the traits of single exposed hosts has less power in predicting transmission dynamics compared to the larger scale factors of the social groups in which they reside. Factors like group size and phenotypic composition appear to alter social interaction patterns, which leads to differential transmission of microbes.

show abstract

“…A large prosoma-to-mass ratio is widely considered to reflect poor body condition in spiders (Jakob, Marshall and Uetz 1996). Thus, it appears that spiders in poor condition are those that participate more frequently in the majority of tasks, possibly reflecting hunger (argued in Beleyur et al 2015). Shyer individuals and those in poor condition tend to perform the majority of tasks associated with an attack sequence (leg pinning and body attacking), while bolder spiders tend to participate more in defensive cribellate silk making suggesting some role of personality in organizing task differentiation in heterogeneous groups.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

2016

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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.

show abstract

Long-term behavioural consistency in prey capture but not in web maintenance in a social spider

Cited by 21 publications

References 56 publications

Multinomial analysis of behavior: statistical methods

Multinomial analysis of behavior: statistical methods

The primary case is not enough: Variation among individuals, groups and social networks modify bacterial transmission dynamics

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

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About