Title
Predator upon a Flower : Life History and Fitness in a Crab Spider / Douglass H. Morse.
ISBN
9780674275409
Published
Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press, [2007]
Copyright
©2007
Language
English
Language Note
In English.
Description
1 online resource (392 p.)
Item Number
10.4159/9780674275409 doi
Call Number
QL458.4 .M678 2007
Dewey Decimal Classification
595.4/4
Summary
In the crab spider, Misumena vatia, Douglass H. Morse and his colleagues found an ideal species on which to test basic questions associated with lifetime fitness. From the moment a female crab spider selects a flower on which to sit and wait for her prey, there unfolds a cascade of lifetime fitness variables that determine her evolutionary success. Did she choose a flower that attracts suitable prey? Will she encounter a competitor or predator? Will she survive long enough to breed, and will her offspring contribute to the gene pool? Ecologists had previously identified variables that shape populations, but lacked the experimental data needed to make comprehensive tests of individuals that made different foraging decisions. Morse found that Misumena is particularly well suited to both field study and laboratory experiments. Over the last 25 years, his simple yet elegant experiments have contributed to our understanding of lifetime fitness and helped to develop study techniques that can be applied to animals with other, more complex, life histories. Predator upon a Flower recounts these influential discoveries in a gracefully crafted narrative that moves ever outward from individuals to communities to ecosystems, and concludes by suggesting directions for future research in spider biology.
Access Note
Access limited to authorized users.
System Details Note
Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.
Digital File Characteristics
text file PDF
Source of Description
Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 01. Dez 2022)
Frontmatter
Contents
Acknowledgments
1 Introduction
2 Some Basic Biology
3 Foraging Strategies
4 Fitness Payoffs
5 Constraints on Success
6 Experience, Learning, and Innate Behavior
7 Some Sensory Aspects of Substrate Choice
8 Morphological Variation
9 Male-Female Interactions
10 Misumena as Part of the Community
11 Xysticus emertoni, a Cohabiting Crab Spider
12 Conclusions and Future Directions
References
Index