Sponsor
This work was supported by the National Science Foundation, award number 0920762.
Published In
PLoS ONE
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
5-3-2017
Subjects
Biofluorescence, Spiders -- Fluorescence, Ultraviolet radiation, Predation (Biology)
Abstract
Fluorescence is increasingly recognized to be widespread in nature. In particular, some arachnids fluoresce externally, and in spiders the hemolymph fluoresces. In this study, we examined the external fluorescence and the fluorophores of different sexes and life stages of the crab spider Misumena vatia (Clerk 1757), a sit-and-wait predator that feeds on insects as they visit flowers. We designed novel instrumentation to measure external fluorescence in whole specimens. We found that although males and females possess internal fluorophores with similar properties, the external expression of fluorescence varies across sexes and life stages. Spiders fluoresce brightly as immatures. Females maintain their brightness to adulthood, whereas males become increasingly dim as they mature. We suggest that external fluorescence likely contributes to visual signaling in these animals, and that it differs between the sexes as a result of differences in foraging ecology and behavior.
DOI
10.1371/journal.pone.0175667
Persistent Identifier
http://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/20228
Citation Details
Brandt EE, Masta SE (2017) Females are the brighter sex: Differences in external fluorescence across sexes and life stages of a crab spider. PLoS ONE 12(5): e0175667. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0175667
Description
Copyright: © 2017 Brandt, Masta. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.