DISSERTATION RESEARCH: Jumping Spiders and Aposematic Prey: Testing the Ecological Consequences of a Context Shift Effect During Learned Avoidance

University Of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst MA

Investigators

Abstract

DISSERTATION RESEARCH: Jumping spiders and aposematic prey: testing the ecological consequences of a context shift effect during learned avoidance PI: Dr. Elizabeth M. Jakob Co-PI: Christa D. Skow Many animals, including insects and spiders, can learn to associate environmental details with events that are important to their survival, such as the location or palatability of a food item. Numerous studies have shown that environmental background cues can be stored in memory as part of an event. This can create a problem when an animal tries to recall an important association across a changing environment. If background cues change between the time that an animal learns an association and when its memory of the association is tested, recall of the association can be compromised. Previous work by the authors demonstrated that the jumping spider Phidippus princeps can learn to avoid distasteful aposematic prey, but lose the association when environmental cues shift. They propose to broaden their study by testing the following: whether relearning the same association after a shift is faster than initial learning, whether subtle shifts in vegetation across environments result in impaired memory recollection as do more dramatic shifts, if background environmental cues alone can be used to make beneficial foraging decisions, and whether it is easier to recall an association after an environmental shift when a food item is more unpalatable and forgetting becomes more costly. This work will contribute to the understanding of the ecological consequences of attending to background cues during learning, predator psychology, and adaptive strategies of prey. The principle investigators have a strong track record of mentoring undergraduate researchers, and will involve undergraduates in all aspects of this research.