Collective behavior and colony persistence of social spiders depends on their physical environment.

ABSTRACT: The physical environment occupied by group-living animals can profoundly affect their cooperative social interactions and therefore their collective behavior and success. These effects can be especially apparent in human-modified habitats, which often harbor substantial variation in the physical environments available within them. For nest-building animal societies, this influence of the physical environment on collective behavior can be mediated by the construction of nests-nests could either buffer animal behavior from changes in the physical environment or facilitate shifts in behavior through changes in nest structure. We test these alternative hypotheses by examining the differences in collective prey-attacking behavior and colony persistence between fence-dwelling and tree-dwelling c

SUBMITTER: Kamath A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6398429 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Jan-Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature