Factors Affecting Performance in Foraging

9317652莫尔斯抽象鸟类和哺乳动物学习如何以及在哪里寻找食物，但大多数人会认为蜘蛛等无脊椎动物不会从经验中学习，它们的成年觅食行为完全是通过成熟来发展的。莫尔斯博士将通过研究经验在蟹蛛选择狩猎地点(“斑块选择”)过程中的作用来检验这一假设。蟹蛛是一种坐着等待的花卉捕食者。他之前的研究已经确定了成功选择幼蛛斑块的重要性，因为这会影响蜘蛛成为成年蜘蛛的机会。此外，如果一个人成功地成为成虫，更早的补丁选择可能会影响捕捉到足够的猎物以产生一窝卵的机会，而卵的大小和最终的终生适应能力将与成虫的成功显著不同。莫尔斯博士仔细研究了成年蟹蛛觅食成功与终生健康之间的关系，使其成为研究幼年学习对成年健康的作用的唯一合适物种，而这一问题几乎没有相关信息。莫尔斯博士将侧重于经验作用的两个方面：青少年对贴片的选择对随后的选择的影响，以及这种青少年的经历对成年后做出的选择的影响。实验将在野外围栏和实验室环境中进行，仔细控制猎物的类型和猎物的时空分布。

9317652 Morse Abstract Birds and mammals learn how and where to find food, but most people would assume that invertebrates such as spiders do not learn from experience, developing their adult foraging behaviors solely through maturation. Dr. Morse will test this assumption by examining the role of experience in the development of choice of hunting site ("patch choice") of the crab spider, a sit-and-wait predator on flowers. His previous research has established the importance of success in juvenile patch choice, because it affects the spider's chances of becoming an adult. Further, if one succeeds in becoming an adult, earlier patch choice may affect the chances of capturing enough prey to produce a clutch of eggs, which will differ markedly in size and resultant lifetime fitness with adult success. Dr. Morse has carefully worked out the relationship between adult foraging success and lifetime fitness of the crab spider, making it a uniquely suitable species for studying the role of juvenile learning on adult fitness, a problem on which virtually no information exists. Dr. Morse will focus on two aspects of the role of experience: the effect of juvenile patch choice on immediately subsequent choices, and the effect of such juvenile experience on choices subsequently made as adults. Experiments will be run both in field enclosures and in laboratory settings, carefully controlling for prey type and spatial and temporal distribution of prey.