The Plasticity of Black Widow Web Building Strategies Based on Prey Type

Reagan Brooks, Shawn Wilder

Abstract


Black widow spiders show various displays of plasticity in order to survive such as; hunting and phenotype plasticity to capture live prey. Do black widow spiders show a display of plasticity with web building strategies in relation to prey type? Studying this question required a two-group design of 12 with each group being fed either flying or non-flying prey. 24 juvenile widows were chosen out of a group maintained within the lab from around the Stillwater area. Juvenile webs were examined every two weeks to see if the most-dense portion of the web changed in height in response to the prey given. After 15 weeks of observation it was found that there is a significance between the height of the most-dense portion and prey type which helped support our hypothesis that black widows change their web building strategies based on prey type.

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References


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