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Spiders cooperate, too! How do these social spiders maintain their shared nests?
In nature, most spiders are solitary hunters, however, some spiders are unexpectedly social and choose to live in groups. These social spiders gain an advantage in the competition for survival through cooperation and mutual support. Not only do they hunt together, they also work together to maintain their nests to increase their overall survival rate. How exactly does this behavior occur?
Social spiders build collective networks so that each spider can share prey and improve hunting efficiency.
Ecological environment of social spiders
Social spiders usually live in tropical areas where insects are abundant and suitable for their prey. These spiders often build large communal webs to obtain more food by hunting cooperatively. This cooperation allows them to take down larger prey than they could when hunting alone, and even small birds and bats are not immune to their clutches.
The ability to build communal webs and cooperate among multiple spiders allows social spiders to capture prey in large movements.
Benefits of Cooperation
Spiders living in the same nest can effectively protect each other's young against external threats, which is very similar to the gathering of fish and the group behavior of organisms. Such cooperation is not limited to hunting, but also includes web maintenance and defense against predators. Through collective action, the ability to overcome external enemies is significantly improved.
Social hierarchy and evolution
Social spiders have different levels of behavior. According to scientists, sociality in spiders may have developed independently 18 to 19 times during evolution. Most social spiders are parasocial, meaning they care for each other's young, use the same nest, and have some generation overlap. Of the 45,000 known species of spiders, only 23 are considered parasocial, and these are widely distributed across many families.
Variations in social behavior occur not only between species, but also between different populations of the same species.
Subsociality and social evolution
In addition to pure social species, many spiders are hyposocial, with lower forms of social organization. These spiders display social behavior during certain seasons but remain solitary during other times. Some species will establish their own territories and form relatively independent habitats even in groups, which is the key to the evolution of sociality in spiders.
Clustering and Reproduction
For example, some social spiders engage in swarming behaviors similar to those of insect societies. They move in sync to build new nests. While this behavior can promote the expansion of the population, it can also lead to the problem of low genetic variation because mating between female spiders is often limited to the same group.
Examples of social spidersThe establishment and maintenance of social spiders highlights the importance of mutual cooperation among organisms in nature.
Examples of social spiders include Agelena consociata, Anelosimus eximius, and Mallos gregalis. These spiders cooperate to obtain food, protect their young, and even facilitate mating and reproduction, allowing them to survive and thrive in this harsh ecology. For example, Anelosimus eximius can form groups of up to 50,000 individuals, displaying amazing social behaviors and reproductive strategies.
Conclusion
The unique behavior of social spiders undoubtedly makes us rethink the cooperation and survival strategies in the insect world. How do they elegantly find a balance within the group and survive various environmental challenges? Is this the ingenious arrangement of natural selection?
