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. 2013 Dec 19:3:3557.
doi: 10.1038/srep03557.

Male courtship vibrations delay predatory behaviour in female spiders

Anne E Wignall  1 , Marie E Herberstein  1
Affiliations

Male courtship vibrations delay predatory behaviour in female spiders

Anne E Wignall et al. Sci Rep. .

Abstract

During courtship, individuals transfer information about identity, mating status and quality. However, male web-building spiders face a significant problem: how to begin courting female spiders without being mistaken for prey? Male Argiope spiders generate distinctive courtship vibrations (shudders) when entering a female's web. We tested whether courtship shudders delay female predatory behaviour, even when live prey is present in the web. We presented a live cricket to females during playbacks of shudder vibrations, or white noise, and compared female responses to a control in which we presented a live cricket with no playback vibrations. Females were much slower to respond to crickets during playback of shudder vibrations. Shudder vibrations also delayed female predatory behaviour in a related spider species, showing that these vibrations do not simply function for species identity. These results suggest that male web-building spiders employ a phylogenetically conserved vibratory signal to ameliorate the risk of pre-copulatory cannibalism.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Comparison of natural and experimental stimulus waveforms.
(a) Waveform of a vibration generated by an adult male shuddering in a female's web, and (b) waveform of the same shudder in (a) played through an electromagnetic shaker.
Figure 2
Figure 2. Female response latency.
Survival analysis showing the percentage of females that responded to the cricket prey over the test period. Each step indicates a female(s) responding to the cricket prey. (a) A. keyserlingi females responding to cricket prey during playback of A. keyserlingi shudders and white noise compared to the silent playback control, and (b) female A. aetherea responding to cricket prey during playback of A. keyserlingi shudders and white noise compared to the silent playback control.
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