title: Male courtship vibrations delay predatory behaviour in female spiders.
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.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Sciences, Macquarie University, North Ryde, Sydney, NSW 2109, Australia.
authors.forename: Anne E
authors.initials: AE
authors.lastname: Wignall
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Sciences, Macquarie University, North Ryde, Sydney, NSW 2109, Australia.
authors.forename: Marie E
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: Herberstein
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D003380:Courtship; D005260:Female; D008297:Male; D011235:Predatory Behavior; D012726:Sexual Behavior, Animal / Q000502:physiology*; D013112:Spiders / Q000502:physiology*; D014732:Vibration