Spiller David A
Department of Zoology, University of California, 95616, Davis, CA, USA.
Oecologia. 1992 Jul;90(4):457-466. doi: 10.1007/BF01875438.
I studied the relationship between prey consumption and colony size in the orb spiderPhiloponella semiplumosa. Observations of unmanipulated colonies showed that prey biomass per juvenile spider was positively correlated with colony size, indicating that prey consumption was highest in the largest colonies observed. In contrast, the relationship between prey biomass per adult female and colony size was curvilinear; prey consumption tended to be highest in intermediatesized colonies. Adult female cephalothorax width was positively correlated with colony size. Number of egg sacs per adult female tended to be highest in intermediate-sized colonies. Prey biomass per juvenile was lower in experimentally reduced colonies than in large control colonies. Aerial-arthropod abundance was not correlated with colony size, and experimental prey supplementation did not affect colony size. Thus, the relationship between prey consumption and colony size was influenced by coloniality directly, rather than by a correlation between prey abundance at a site and colony size.
我研究了半羽悦目金蛛（Philoponella semiplumosa）猎物消耗与群体大小之间的关系。对未做处理的群体的观察表明，每只幼年蜘蛛的猎物生物量与群体大小呈正相关，这表明在所观察到的最大群体中，猎物消耗最高。相比之下，每只成年雌蛛的猎物生物量与群体大小之间的关系呈曲线状；在中等大小的群体中，猎物消耗往往最高。成年雌蛛的头胸部宽度与群体大小呈正相关。每只成年雌蛛的卵囊数量在中等大小的群体中往往最多。在实验性减少的群体中，每只幼年蜘蛛的猎物生物量低于大型对照群体。空中节肢动物的丰度与群体大小无关，实验性的猎物补充也不影响群体大小。因此，猎物消耗与群体大小之间的关系直接受到群居性的影响，而不是受某一地点的猎物丰度与群体大小之间相关性的影响。
