Department of Biology, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708, USA.
J Exp Biol. 2013 May 1;216(Pt 9):1744-56. doi: 10.1242/jeb.071118. Epub 2013 Jan 24.
In diverse and productive habitats, predaceous arthropods are expected to frequently encounter dangerous conspecifics and heterospecifics. This should make quick and accurate discriminations between species and sexes adaptive. By simultaneously sampling both visual cues and pheromones, and by utilizing stringent species- and sex-specific visual recognition templates, an individual should be able to increase both its speed and accuracy in making such discriminations. We tested for the use and stringency of visual recognition templates in the jumping spider Lyssomanes viridis by presenting males with animated images of conspecifics, heterospecifics and composite images that combined the facial coloration and morphology of one sex or species with the leg coloration of another. Males' courtship versus threat displays indicated whether a stimulus was perceived as a potential mate or a threat. By comparing males' visual inspection times of, and display types towards, the various images in the presence versus absence of female pheromones, we were able to deduce whether males tend to inspect a subset of the color pattern and morphological features that make up their conspecific recognition templates (i.e. those on just the face or just the legs), or all features, and whether this changes in the presence of pheromones. We found that the male recognition template for conspecific female was surprisingly coarse, whereas the recognition template for conspecific male, and especially the male face, was more specific. Pheromones hastened the recognition of images with coloration and morphology closely matching those of conspecifics, presumably by activating conspecific visual recognition templates. When males were presented with an image that was, overall, a poor match to a conspecific female, but that contained a subset of female or female-like features, female pheromones usually did not hasten recognition, but did increase the likelihood that the image would be identified as a female. Taken together, our data suggest that males examined features on both the face and the legs in both the presence and absence of pheromones, and that female pheromones tipped the balance in favor of a female identification when a male was unsure how to categorize an incongruous set of visual features.
在多样且多产的栖息地中，捕食性节肢动物预计会频繁遇到危险的同种和异种生物。这应该使它们能够快速准确地对物种和性别进行区分。通过同时采样视觉线索和信息素，并利用严格的物种和性别特异性视觉识别模板，个体应该能够提高其在进行此类区分时的速度和准确性。我们通过向雄性绿跳蛛展示同种、异种和组合图像的动画图像来测试视觉识别模板的使用和严格性，这些组合图像将一种性别的面部颜色和形态与另一种性别的腿部颜色结合在一起。雄性的求偶与威胁展示表明刺激是否被视为潜在的配偶或威胁。通过比较雄性在有或没有雌性信息素存在的情况下对各种图像的视觉检查时间和展示类型，我们可以推断出雄性是否倾向于检查构成其同种识别模板的一部分颜色模式和形态特征（即仅面部或仅腿部），或者是否检查所有特征，以及这种情况在信息素存在时是否会发生变化。我们发现，同种雌性的雄性识别模板出奇地粗糙，而同种雄性的识别模板，尤其是雄性的面部，更加具体。信息素加速了与同种生物颜色和形态非常匹配的图像的识别，可能是通过激活同种视觉识别模板来实现的。当雄性被展示一个与同种雌性整体匹配不佳但包含一部分雌性或雌性特征的图像时，雌性信息素通常不会加速识别，但会增加将图像识别为雌性的可能性。总的来说，我们的数据表明，雄性在有或没有信息素的情况下都会检查面部和腿部的特征，而当雄性不确定如何对一组不协调的视觉特征进行分类时，雌性信息素会使雌性识别的可能性偏向于有利。
