Complex signals: what do spiders have to say?
-
1
University of Toronto Scarborough, Biological Sciences, Canada
-
2
University of California Berkeley, Environmental Science, Policy and Management, United States
-
3
College of the Bahamas, School of Chemistry, Environmental & Life Sciences, Bahamas
Courtship signals vary in complexity, but are often more elaborate than long-range advertisement signals, having multiple signal components sometimes produced in different sensory modalities. The interaction between components within complex signals and the contribution of individual components to overall signal function are poorly understood. I will compare courtship displays in three spider groups that span a range of complexity in signal structure: jumping spiders; wolf spiders; and widow spiders. Jumping spiders of the genus Habronattus show highly elaborate male courtship displays that comprise multiple signal elements in at least two sensory modalities (visual and vibratory). In this group, prolonged, multimodal courtship displays are highly structured (with a regular, species-specific progression of signal elements throughout the display), and show a pattern of diversification across the genus that is consistent with selection for suites of multimodal traits driven by female preferences for displays of higher complexity. In contrast, Australian redback spiders (Latrodectus hasselti) prolonged male courtship displays are relatively unstructured. Evidence in this system suggests that courtship signals, consisting primarily of web-borne vibration, are a simple broadcast of vibrational energy that is integrated by females to arrive at a mate-acceptance threshold. Wolf spiders (genus Schizocosa) represent an intermediate between these two. Males produce complex vibrational displays comprising multiple elements that are produced by independent mechanisms and that are correlated with distinct aspects of male quality (developmental history vs current condition). I speculate that these differences in complexity and information content of male signals critically depend on effects of variable substrates on signal transmission and constraints of female sensory capacities (largely a function of hunting ecology).
Keywords:
courtship signal,
invertebrate,
spider,
Vibration
Conference:
Tenth International Congress of Neuroethology, College Park. Maryland USA, United States, 5 Aug - 10 Aug, 2012.
Presentation Type:
Invited Symposium (only for people who have been invited to a particular symposium)
Topic:
Communication
Citation:
Mason
A,
Elias
D and
De Luca
P
(2012). Complex signals: what do spiders have to say?.
Conference Abstract:
Tenth International Congress of Neuroethology.
doi: 10.3389/conf.fnbeh.2012.27.00022
Copyright:
The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers.
They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters.
The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated.
Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed.
For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions.
Received:
20 Apr 2012;
Published Online:
07 Jul 2012.
*
Correspondence:
Prof. Andrew Mason, University of Toronto Scarborough, Biological Sciences, Scarborough, ON, M1C 1A4, Canada, andrew.mason@utoronto.ca