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© 1993 International Society for Behavioral Ecology

research-article

Choosing hunting sites with little information: patch-choice responses of crab spiders to distant cues

Douglass H. Morse

Graduate Program in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Division of Biology and Medicine, Brown University BoxG-W, Providence, RI 02912, USA

ABSTRACT

Adult female crab spiders (Misumena valid) released in a meadow moved to milkweed stems more often than to other sites and also moved to flowering milkweed stems more often than to equally available nonflowering ones. Preferences of the spiders as a population were similar during initial and second trials, but given individuals did not repeat their initial choices more often than predicted by chance. Thus, spiders probably responded directly to cues present, rather than to information retained from earlier experience. Spiders placed at the base of flowering milkweed stems did not choose these sites more often than predicted by chance or more often than did spiders released in the grass, suggesting that this increase in localization provided no additional information for choosing a hunting site. However, spiders placed at the bases of nonflowering stems selected them less often than predicted. Second trials with these spiders also resembled initial trials, but, as with the spiders released in the grass, given individuals did not repeat their initial performance more often than predicted. Thus, spiders released in the grass probably responded directly to cues present, as did spiders released at the base of stems. The choices of these spiders, combined with flexible giving-up times, caused the spiders to be concentrated on flowering stems. Although this strategy results in a better-than-random pattern of selecting hunting sites, the spiders lose considerable foraging time in the process.

Key words: crab spider, foraging, incomplete information, Misumena, patch.


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Home page
 Behav EcolHome page
J. T. Anderson and D. H. Morse
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Behav. Ecol., May 1, 2001; 12(3): 360 - 366.
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