SGER: Developing Phidippus Audax (Araneae, Salticidae) as a Model Organism for the Study of Spatial Learning

许多动物通过学习食物、避难所或其他资源的空间位置而受益。对一小部分物种进行了深入的研究，很明显，不同物种在能力的范围以及收集和使用空间信息的方式方面存在巨大差异。这种差异表明，研究更广泛的分类群将是有价值的。该项目的目标是建立跳跃蜘蛛，特别是Phidippus audax，作为研究空间导航和学习的工具。这些蜘蛛白天捕食，晚上反复回到丝质的巢穴，这是一项简单的空间任务。它们可以在实验室和现场进行研究，并且严重依赖视觉线索，这很容易通过实验进行操作。在本项目中，将研究空间导航的两个方面。(1)在独特定向中，动物在行进时会记录自己的距离和方向，就像海上的船一样;使用这种方法的动物可以以迂回的路径离开巢穴，但随后会以直线返回。其他研究人员对跳蛛行为的实地观察表明，他们可能使用了独特取向，但数据很少。在本项目中，我们将对蜘蛛行为进行观察性实地研究，以确定它们的行为是否与独特取向一致。我们还将进行受控的实验室测试，以确定蜘蛛是否使用独特的导航返回猎物。(2)动物也使用地标或环境线索来指示目标的位置。操纵地标位置的实地测试将用于评估跳蛛是否使用它们来寻找巢穴或返回它们捕获猎物的地方。在实验室中，操纵实验将提供更多关于蜘蛛如何整合地标信息的信息，包括它们是否喜欢近距离地标，是否以及如何使用地标大小的信息，以及是否以及如何使用两个地标之间的关系。总而言之，这些观察和实验将使跳蛛成为研究空间学习的新模型系统。

Many animals benefit by learning about the spatial location of food, refuges, or other resources. A small set of species has been studied in depth, and it is clear that there is tremendous variation across species both in the extent of their abilities and how they gather and use spatial information. This variation suggests that examining a wider variety of taxa would be valuable. The goal of this project is to establish jumping spiders, in particular Phidippus audax, as a tool for the study of spatial navigation and learning. These spiders hunt for prey during the day and return repeatedly to silken nests at night, a simple spatial task. They can be studied in the laboratory and field, and rely heavily on visual cues, which are easy to manipulate experimentally. In this project, two aspects of spatial navigation will be examined. (1) In idiothetic orientation, an animal keeps track of its distance and direction as it travels, much as a ship at sea does; animals that use this method can move away from their nest in a circuitous path, but then return in a straight line. Field observations of jumping spider behavior by other researchers suggest that they may be using idiothetic orientation, but data are few. In this project, we will conduct observational field studies of spider behavior to determine whether their behavior is consistent with idiothetic orientation. We will also conduct controlled laboratory tests of whether spiders use idiothetic navigation to return to prey. (2) Animals also use landmarks, or environmental cues that signal the location of a goal. Tests in the field in which landmark placement is manipulated will be used to assess whether jumping spiders use them to find their nests or return to places where they have captured prey. In the laboratory, manipulative experiments will provide more information about exactly how spiders incorporate information from landmarks, including whether they favor close versus far landmarks, whether and how information about landmark size is used, and whether and how information about the relationship between two landmarks is used. Taken together, these observations and experiments will establish jumping spiders as a new model system for the study of spatial learning.