Variation of vibratory performance during courtship of a cursorial spider
摘要
Variation in behavioral traits, both between individuals and within individuals, can influence survival and reproduction in diverse ways. Within displays of male courtship, behavioral variation can be especially useful for indicating drivers of female choice. In this study, we repeatedly recorded the vibratory courtship signal of male Pisaura mirabilis spiders and assessed individual variation in average expression, predictability, and trait-correlation of three vibratory traits (calling duration, pulse rate, and pulse interval) using multivariate and double hierarchical mixed models. We found that individuals were very consistent in the amount of time spent signaling and the rate of pulses within the signal, but showed inconsistency in the interval between pulses. We also found that calling duration increased significantly with an individual’s weight, and pulse rate decreased significantly with an individual’s age. We conclude that calling duration and pulse rate may function as indicators of male quality. Given that pulse interval does not show individual specificity, it seems unlikely that this trait functions as a signal for female choice but might be important in signal (and species) recognition. This description of variation in the vibratory signal of P. mirabilis will inform future research on the multimodal courtship display of the organism.