Facultative group living in the western black widow spider, Latrodectus hesperus: an evolutionary approach
Bibliographic record
Abstract
A major goal of evolutionary research is to elucidate the processes involved in the evolution of group versus solitary living, by examining the selective forces driving or constraining a particular type of social system.Species with intermediate group living tendencies are particularly interesting because they offer insight into evolutionary transitions and, in particular, how different selective environments may modulate group living behaviours.This dissertation explores the different factors that shape the social strategies of the western black widow spider, Latrodectus hesperus, a facultatively groupliving spider.Over a period of four years, I characterized the social structure of coastal British Columbia populations of1.hesperus, and show that individuals live either solitarily or in groups depending on the time of year, their reproductive status, and age.I then used an experimental approach to investigate the dynamics and adaptive value of facultative group-living behaviours, by testing different hypotheses about the decisions involved in social interactions, web building, microhabitat settlement, movement, and foraging.Several factors were manipulated and shown to influence the patterns of group living in 1. hesperus, including individual nutritional state, prey availability, group size, population density, and neighbour proximity.Spiders adjusted their group living behaviours according to changes in these factors, and responded strategically to the presence and proximity of conspecifics.Based on the results of these experiments, I developed a model of group living in spiders that specifically considers the dynamic and strategic nature of social interactions in the context of frequency-dependent selection.The research presented in this thesis furthers our understanding of the evolution of social behaviour by providing new evidence on the mechanisms that promote and regulate facultative group-living behaviours.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".