Laboratory of Socioecology and Social Evolution, Zoological Institute, University of Leuven, 3000 Leuven, Belgium.
Am Nat. 2013 Jul;182(1):120-9. doi: 10.1086/670525. Epub 2013 May 21.
Spiders of the tropical American colonial orb weaver Parawixia bistriata form a communal bivouac in daytime. At sunset, they leave the bivouac and construct individual, defended webs within a large, communally built scaffolding of permanent, thick silk lines between trees and bushes. Once spiders started building a web, they repelled other spiders walking on nearby scaffolding with a "bounce" behavior. In nearly all cases (93%), this resulted in the intruder leaving without a fight, akin to the "bourgeois strategy," in which residents win and intruders retreat without escalated contests. However, a few spiders (6.5%) did not build a web due to lack of available space. Webless spiders were less likely to leave when bounced (only 42% left) and instead attempted to "freeload," awaiting the capture of prey items in nearby webs. Our simple model shows that webless spiders should change their strategy from bourgeois to freeloading satellite as potential web sites become increasingly occupied.
热带美洲殖民地圆蛛 Parawixia bistriata 的蜘蛛在白天形成一个群居的营地。日落后，它们离开营地，在树木和灌木丛之间用永久性的、厚厚的丝线共同建造一个大型的、有防御性的单个蜘蛛网。一旦蜘蛛开始织网，它们就会用“弹跳”行为驱赶在附近脚手架上行走的其他蜘蛛。在几乎所有情况下（93%），这都会导致入侵者不战而退，类似于“资产阶级策略”，其中居民获胜，入侵者不升级冲突就撤退。然而，有一些蜘蛛（6.5%）由于缺乏可用空间而没有织网。没有网的蜘蛛被弹开时离开的可能性较小（只有 42%离开），而是试图“搭便车”，等待附近网中捕获的猎物。我们的简单模型表明，随着潜在的网站越来越被占用，没有网的蜘蛛应该将其策略从资产阶级改为搭便车的卫星。
