Meeting Abstract
Animals use a variety of sensory modalities to accomplish tasks necessary for survival, often using more than one modality to accomplish a given task. Spiders are capable of incredibly sensitive detection of substrate-borne vibrations, and jumping spiders in particular have the most acute vision known in arthropods. In this study we investigate how the availability of visual and vibratory information and their combination affects prey capture in the jumping spider Habronattus formosus. Wild-caught spiders were placed with a single prey item (either a cricket or a flightless fruit fly) in experimental arenas where we could manipulate the visual and vibratory environment. Time to capture was recorded, as was the spider’s ability to capture their prey. Spiders had slower capture time and lower probability of success in dim lights and when the prey was a cricket. Lack of substrate-borne vibrations lowered the probability of success for catching crickets but not flies. Dim lights disproportionately lowered the probability of success for catching crickets. These results suggest that jumping spiders are plastic in their use of sensory information.
