Morse Douglass H
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Box G-W, Brown University, Providence, RI 02912, USA e-mail:
Oecologia. 1999 Aug;120(2):252-257. doi: 10.1007/s004420050855.
Earlier experiences may play an important role in the choice of hunting sites, but their effects on the foraging repertoire of most animals remain poorly understood. I tested the role of previous flower choices (hunting sites) by penultimate-instar female crab spiders Misumena vatia in making subsequent patch-choice decisions. M. vatia is a sit-and-wait predator, and the two flower species used, ox-eye daisy Chrysanthemum leucanthemum and common buttercup Ranunculus acris, are important hunting sites. Spiders with different immediate experience showed similar short-term (<1 day) giving-up times on the two flower species, independent of their previous substrate. However, four-fifths of the individuals that remained a day or longer tended to leave buttercups sooner than daisies, especially if they had previously occupied daisies. Thus they may directly assess the quality of a potential hunting site, perhaps in response to prey abundance, but previous experience may play a minor role as well. Of spiders that made several consecutive choices of hunting sites, those on daisies often confined these runs to daisies (one of two years); those on buttercups did not exhibit comparable fidelity. Spiders molting into the adult stage almost always subsequently chose the same flower species (either daisy or buttercup) as the one on which they molted. Thus, juvenile experiences may influence adults, the critical stage when virtually all of the spiders' reproductive resources are gathered, even if this resulted from imprinting on their molt sites rather than carrying information over the molt.
早期经历可能在狩猎地点的选择中发挥重要作用，但它们对大多数动物觅食技能的影响仍知之甚少。我测试了倒数第二龄雌性蟹蛛（Misumena vatia）先前的花朵选择（狩猎地点）在其后续斑块选择决策中的作用。蟹蛛是一种坐等型捕食者，所使用的两种花卉，即牛眼菊（Chrysanthemum leucanthemum）和毛茛（Ranunculus acris），是重要的狩猎地点。具有不同即时经历的蜘蛛在这两种花卉上表现出相似的短期（<1天）放弃时间，与它们先前所在的基质无关。然而，在某一花朵上停留一天或更长时间的个体中，五分之四的个体往往比在雏菊上更早离开毛茛，尤其是如果它们之前占据的是雏菊。因此，它们可能会直接评估潜在狩猎地点的质量，这或许是对猎物丰富度的一种反应，但先前的经历可能也起到了较小的作用。在连续多次选择狩猎地点的蜘蛛中，那些选择雏菊的蜘蛛通常会将这些选择局限于雏菊（两年中的一年出现这种情况）；而选择毛茛的蜘蛛则没有表现出类似的忠诚度。蜕皮进入成年阶段的蜘蛛几乎总是随后选择与它们蜕皮时所在的花朵相同的花卉种类（要么是雏菊，要么是毛茛）。因此，幼体经历可能会影响成年个体，而成年阶段是蜘蛛几乎所有生殖资源得以积累的关键时期，即便这是由于在蜕皮地点留下印记而非通过蜕皮传递信息所致。
