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Related Experiment Video

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The Social Dimension of Stress: Experimental Manipulations of Social Support and Social Identity in the Trier Social Stress Test

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Individual personalities shape task differentiation in a social spider.

Lena Grinsted¹, Jonathan N Pruitt, Virginia Settepani

¹Department of Bioscience, Aarhus University, Ny Munkegade 116, Building 1540, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark. lena.grinsted@biology.au.dk

Proceedings. Biological Sciences

|August 2, 2013

Summary

Animal personality, specifically boldness, drives task differentiation in social spiders, independent of age. These traits predict field behavior, suggesting personality

Keywords:

behavioural syndrome personality social organization social spiders task differentiation task specialization

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Area of Science:

Behavioral Ecology
Evolutionary Biology
Animal Social Behavior

Background:

Understanding social structure evolution requires deciphering mechanisms of sociality.
Individual specialization within groups enhances colony efficiency and productivity.
Animal personality, consistent individual behavioral differences, may influence social organization.

Purpose of the Study:

To test if within-group variation in individual personalities (boldness, aggression) shapes task differentiation in social spiders.
To investigate the role of personality in task allocation during prey capture in Stegodyphus sarasinorum.

Main Methods:

Conducted 10-day behavioral assays simulating prey capture events in the field.
Observed task differentiation (unequal participation) in the social spider Stegodyphus sarasinorum.
Assessed correlations between personality traits (boldness, aggression), body size, developmental stage, and dispersal distance with specific behaviors during prey capture.

Main Results:

Task differentiation in prey capture occurred independently of developmental stage, ruling out age polyethism.
Participation in prey capture was positively associated with boldness, but not aggression.
Body size influenced emergence timing, while dispersal distance correlated with attack behavior, indicating complex individual contributions.

Conclusions:

Individual personalities, particularly boldness, significantly shape task differentiation in social spiders, independent of age and maturation.
Personality measures from solitary settings can reliably predict behavior in social field contexts.
Animal personality likely plays a crucial role in the social organization of diverse animal species.