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Estimating the repeatability of memories of captured prey formed by Frontinella communis spiders (Araneae: Linyphiidae)

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Abstract

How animals deal with the challenges posed by their ecological and social surroundings often hinges on the acquisition and storage of information about those surroundings. That is, an animal’s fitness may be influenced by variation in the mental representations it has formed of its environment. Studying such variation is challenging because it involves documenting inherently subjective phenomena. However, observations of behaviour may provide objective descriptions of mental representations. We used the behaviour of Frontinella communis spiders after removal of prey from their webs as an assay of the contents of their memories of the prey. Spiders searched for lost prey, exerting greater effort in searching for larger prey, and distinguishing between the object of the search and old prey remnants. We thus infer that spider memories included information about prey features such as size or quality. We found significant repeatability in the spiders’ searching behaviour, suggesting repeatability in memory content. As an indication of consistent between-individual differences in searching and memory, these repeatability estimates suggest that selection may act to shape mental representations and their relationship with foraging behaviour.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Gerlinde Höbel for help in the laboratory and comments to the manuscript. Ted Bach helped collect spiders and conduct trials. Christina Haen weighed and measured crickets and spiders. Nooria Al-Wathiqui, Kasey Fowler–Finn, Elizabeth Jakob, Darren Rebar, Robert Suter and three anonymous reviewers kindly commented on previous versions of the manuscript. Gustavo Hormiga and Mike Draney helped identify the spiders. Raoul Mulder and Peter Dunn gave R advice. This work was supported by NSF grant IOS-0919962 to RLR and by a UWM SURF award to MDG and RLR.

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  1. Department of Biological Sciences, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Lapham Hall, 3209 N. Maryland Ave., Milwaukee, WI, 53201, USA

    Rafael L. Rodríguez & Matthew D. Gloudeman

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  1. Rafael L. Rodríguez
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Correspondence to Rafael L. Rodríguez.

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Rodríguez, R.L., Gloudeman, M.D. Estimating the repeatability of memories of captured prey formed by Frontinella communis spiders (Araneae: Linyphiidae). Anim Cogn 14, 675–682 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-011-0402-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-011-0402-9

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