Foraging strategies and feeding regimes:: Web and decoration investment in Argiope keyserlingi Karsch (Araneae: Araneidae)

Abstract

The principal foraging cost for web-building spiders is the amount of silk invested in their webs. Spiders in the genus Argiope additionally decorate their orb webs with conspicuous UV-white silk bands, called web 'decorations' or 'stabilimenta', which enhance foraging success by attracting prey to the web. We subjected Argiope keyserlingi Karsch to different feeding regimes and measured their foraging response with respect to the size and design of the orb-web, and the number and length of decorative silk bands. Spiders experiencing low prey encounter rates constructed larger webs and incorporated more silk but fewer web decorations than spiders experiencing high prey encounter rates. When ..