DISSERTATION RESEARCH: Jumping Spiders and Aposematic Prey: Testing the Ecological Consequences of a Context Shift Effect During Learned Avoidance

论文研究：跳跃蜘蛛和警戒猎物：测试学习回避过程中环境转换效应的生态后果。JakobCo-PI：Christa D.许多动物，包括昆虫和蜘蛛，都能学会将环境细节与对它们生存至关重要的事件联系起来，比如食物的位置或可口性。 许多研究表明，环境背景线索可以作为事件的一部分存储在记忆中。 当动物试图在不断变化的环境中回忆一个重要的联系时，这可能会产生问题。 如果背景线索在动物学习一个关联的时间和测试它对该关联的记忆之间发生变化，那么对该关联的回忆可能会受到影响。 作者先前的工作表明，跳蛛Phidippus princeps可以学会避免令人厌恶的警戒性猎物，但当环境线索发生变化时，就会失去这种联系。 他们建议通过测试以下内容来扩大研究范围：在一次转变后重新学习相同的关联是否比最初的学习更快，在不同环境中植被的细微变化是否会像更剧烈的变化一样导致记忆回忆受损，如果背景环境线索单独可以用来做出有益的觅食决定，以及在环境变化后，当食物变得更难吃，遗忘的代价变得更高时，是否更容易回忆起一个关联。 这项工作将有助于理解在学习，捕食者心理和适应性策略的猎物参加背景线索的生态后果。 主要研究者有很强的指导本科研究人员的记录，并将涉及本研究的各个方面的本科生。

DISSERTATION RESEARCH: Jumping spiders and aposematic prey: testing the ecological consequences of a context shift effect during learned avoidancePI: Dr. Elizabeth M. JakobCo-PI: Christa D. SkowMany animals, including insects and spiders, can learn to associate environmental details with events that are important to their survival, such as the location or palatability of a food item. Numerous studies have shown that environmental background cues can be stored in memory as part of an event. This can create a problem when an animal tries to recall an important association across a changing environment. If background cues change between the time that an animal learns an association and when its memory of the association is tested, recall of the association can be compromised. Previous work by the authors demonstrated that the jumping spider Phidippus princeps can learn to avoid distasteful aposematic prey, but lose the association when environmental cues shift. They propose to broaden their study by testing the following: whether relearning the same association after a shift is faster than initial learning, whether subtle shifts in vegetation across environments result in impaired memory recollection as do more dramatic shifts, if background environmental cues alone can be used to make beneficial foraging decisions, and whether it is easier to recall an association after an environmental shift when a food item is more unpalatable and forgetting becomes more costly. This work will contribute to the understanding of the ecological consequences of attending to background cues during learning, predator psychology, and adaptive strategies of prey. The principle investigators have a strong track record of mentoring undergraduate researchers, and will involve undergraduates in all aspects of this research.