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A predator’s preference for egg-carrying prey: a novel cost of parental care

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Abstract

Using a subsocial spitting spider (Scytodes pallida) as the prey and a spider-eating jumping spider (Portia labiata) as the predator, the cost of parental care is investigated. Our findings suggest that being singled out as preferred prey by P. labiata is, for egg-carrying females of S. pallida, an important cost of parental care. In survival tests, during which P. labiata was given access to egg-carrying and eggless S. pallida females, egg-carrying females were preyed on more often than eggless females. In preference tests, motionless lures instead of living S. pallida were used. The lures were made by mounting dead egg-carrying and dead eggless S. pallida females in lifelike posture in webs. In these tests, P. labiata detected and identified, by vision alone, both kinds of prey (egg-carrying and eggless), and singled out egg-carrying females as preferred prey.

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Acknowledgements

Wan She Lee, Lek Min Lim and Wee Khee Seah provided valuable comments on the manuscript. Our work was supported by grants from the National University of Singapore’s Academic Research Fund (R-154-000-140-112 and R-154-000-188-112) and from the New Zealand Royal Society’s Marsden Fund (UOC512). Our work complied with the current laws of Singapore, New Zealand and the Philippines. Work in the Philippines was generously supported by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), and we are especially grateful to Alberto T. Barrion, Kong Luen Heong, and Tom W. Mew for the numerous ways in which they supported the research, and to the following IRRI staff for their assistance: Elpie Hernandez, Errol Rico, Ruben Abuyo, Glicerio Javier Jr., Josie Lynn Catindig and Clod Lapis.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biological Sciences, National University of Singapore, 10 Kent Ridge Crescent, , 119260, Singapore

    Daiqin Li

  2. Department of Zoology, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand

    Robert R. Jackson

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  1. Daiqin Li
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  2. Robert R. Jackson
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Correspondence to Daiqin Li.

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Communicated by M.A. Elgar

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Li, D., Jackson, R.R. A predator’s preference for egg-carrying prey: a novel cost of parental care. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 55, 129–136 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-003-0689-x

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