Cooperative foraging expands dietary niche but does not offset intra-group competition for resources in social spiders.

ABSTRACT: Group living animals invariably risk resource competition. Cooperation in foraging, however, may benefit individuals in groups by facilitating an increase in dietary niche. To test this, we performed a comparative study of social and solitary spider species. Three independently derived social species of Stegodyphus (Eresidae) occupy semi-arid savannas and overlap with three solitary congeners. We estimated potential prey availability in the environment and prey acquisition by spiders in their capture webs. We calculated dietary niche width (prey size) and breadth (taxonomic range) to compare resource use for these six species, and investigated the relationships between group size and average individual capture web production, prey biomass intake rate and variance in biomass intake. Coopera

SUBMITTER: Majer M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6081395 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature