Poke but don't pinch: risk assessment and venom metering in the western black widow spider, Latrodectus hesperus

Nelsen, David R.; Kelln, Wayne; Hayes, William K.

doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2013.12.019

Cited by 39 publications

(52 citation statements)

References 63 publications

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“…The authors suggested that the spiders treated the brief intervals as a single predatory encounter and the lengthy intervals as separate events requiring additional venom for each new attacker. Nelsen et al (2014a) concluded that their results were consistent with risk assessment and the capacity to modulate venom expenditure during defensive encounters.…”

Section: Amount Of Venom Deployed By Spiderssupporting

confidence: 60%

“…(Theraphosidae) often actively withheld venom during milking attempts. Nelsen et al (2014a) investigated defensive venom use in the western black widow spider (Latrodectus hesperus) and found that, when pinched, at least 50 % of the bites to three successive presentations of parafilm-covered tubes appeared to be dry. The proportion of dry bites did not decline among the three targets in succession, and dry bites often preceded wet bites ( Table 2), suggesting that the spiders deliberately withheld their venom.…”

Section: Selective Venom Use By Spidersmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…More recently, Nelsen et al (2014a) used ELISA to quantify the venom delivered by L. hesperus during defensive encounters, investigating how presumed level of threat (body vs. leg pinch) and persistence of threat (brief vs. lengthy intervals between three successive simulated attacks) affected venom expenditure. The spiders injected 1.8-fold more venom per bite when pinched on the body compared to a leg (Fig.…”

Section: Amount Of Venom Deployed By Spidersmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the case of predation, subthreshold stimuli arising from relatively small, harmless, or unresponsive prey may result in prey capture and consumption without envenomation (Hayes et al 2002;Malli et al 1998;Wigger et al 2002). For defense, subthreshold stimuli may evoke alternate presumably less costly behaviors, including fleeing (Gibbons and Dorcas 2002;Nelsen et al 2014a), leg autotomy (Nelsen et al 2014a), threat displays (Gibbons and Dorcas 2002), retaliatory pinching/biting (Heatwole 1967;Schmidt 1990), sham strikes (Hayes 2008), and dry bites or stings (Herzig 2010;Morgenstern and King 2013;Nisani and Hayes 2011).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

See 3 more Smart Citations

The Strategic Use of Venom by Spiders

Cooper¹,

Nelsen²,

Hayes³

2015

Evolution of Venomous Animals and Their Toxins

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Understanding the behaviors by which animals deploy their venoms has been largely neglected compared to other aspects of the evolution and biology of venomous organisms and their venoms. Yet, behavior has long been recognized as a pacemaker for the evolution of morphological, ecological, life history, and other traits, in large part because behavioral responses can expose organisms to or protect them from novel selection pressures. The importance of behavior is especially evident in that venom most often functions through a behavioral act that generates a wound in a target animal through which the toxic secretion must be introduced. As a limited and costly commodity, venom should be deployed strategically and judiciously by those animals that possess it. The chapter summarizes the major aspects of adaptive venom use in animals, and highlights the best documented examples of strategic venom deployment among spiders. These animals, like other venomous taxa, exhibit four major behavioral strategies. First, they are often highly selective when using their venom, discharging it only under certain conditions. Second, they can modulate the quantity of venom they expend in both predatory and defensive contexts, delivering multiple bites or variable quantities within individual doses. Third, at least one study suggests that spiders possess venom gland heterogeneity and therefore deliver varying venom composition with successive venom expulsions. Finally, some evidence suggests that spiders can strategically target the delivery of their weapon at a particularly vulnerable region of their target. Collectively, the evidence suggests a common theme among spiders and other venomous animals for economization and optimization of venom deployment.

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Section: Amount Of Venom Deployed By Spiderssupporting

confidence: 60%

Section: Selective Venom Use By Spidersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Amount Of Venom Deployed By Spidersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

See 2 more Smart Citations

The Strategic Use of Venom by Spiders

Cooper¹,

Nelsen²,

Hayes³

2015

Evolution of Venomous Animals and Their Toxins

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…In the case of thanatosis in the solitary parasitic wasp Nasonia vitripennis (King & Leaich, 2006) the propensity of utilizing a sting response as a defensive measure is likely severely reduced, as with other solitary bees and wasps, compared to social hymenoptera. This "reluctance" to sting is most likely due to the metabolic costs of producing venom, and the need to use existing venom stores to provide a suitable host for offspring (Nelsen, Kelln, & Hayes, 2014). Use of the defensive sting reflex of social hymenoptera is not as detrimental to the potential reproductive success of the individual and, as a result, can be used in place of more passive defensing action.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Studies of learned helplessness in honey bees (Apis mellifera ligustica).

Dinges¹,

Varnon²,

Cota³

et al. 2017

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Learning and Cogniti

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The current study provides evidence of learned helplessness in the honey bee (Apis mellifera L.). Bees received either avoidable or unavoidable shock during a discriminative compartment restriction task in an automated shuttle box. Decreased avoidance behavior was observed when bees received unavoidable shock prior to avoidable shock tests, conserving a non-preference response pattern. Prior training with avoidable shock created a preference that was conserved when shock was later unavoidable. Length of the training time impacted how pronounced the conserved behavior was in subsequent tests. Unlike existing learned helplessness studies in other animals, no decrease in general activity was observed. These findings identify honey bees as a unique model organism to explore the process of learned helplessness.v

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Beyond spider personality: The relationships between behavioral, physiological, and environmental factors

Duran

Wilson

Briffa

et al. 2021

Ecology and Evolution

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Spiders are useful models for testing different hypotheses and methodologies relating to animal personality and behavioral syndromes because they show a range of behavioral types and unique physiological traits (e.g., silk and venom) that are not observed in many other animals. These characteristics allow for a unique understanding of how physiology, behavioral plasticity, and personality interact across different contexts to affect spider's individual fitness and survival. However, the relative effect of extrinsic factors on physiological traits (silk, venom, and neurohormones) that play an important role in spider survival, and which may impact personality, has received less attention. The goal of this review is to explore how the environment, experience, ontogeny, and physiology interact to affect spider personality types across different contexts. We highlight physiological traits, such as neurohormones, and unique spider biochemical weapons, namely silks and venoms, to explore how the use of these traits might, or might not, be constrained or limited by particular behavioral types. We argue that, to develop a comprehensive understanding of the flexibility and persistence of specific behavioral types in spiders, it is necessary to incorporate these underlying mechanisms into a synthesized whole, alongside other extrinsic and intrinsic factors.

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Poke but don't pinch: risk assessment and venom metering in the western black widow spider, Latrodectus hesperus

Cited by 39 publications

References 63 publications

The Strategic Use of Venom by Spiders

The Strategic Use of Venom by Spiders

Studies of learned helplessness in honey bees (Apis mellifera ligustica).

Beyond spider personality: The relationships between behavioral, physiological, and environmental factors

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