10.5061/DRYAD.PS383
Pruitt, Jonathan N.
University of Pittsburgh
Bolnick, Daniel I.
The University of Texas at Austin
Sih, Andrew
University of California, Davis
DiRienzo, Nicholas
University of Arizona
Pinter-Wollman, Noa
University of California Los Angeles
Data from: Behavioural hypervolumes of spider communities predict
community performance and disbandment
Dryad
dataset
2016
mixed species group
behavioral niche
temperament
behavioral syndrome
2016-11-15T17:48:04Z
2016-11-15T17:48:04Z
en
https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2016.1409
86728 bytes
3
CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication
Trait-based ecology argues that an understanding of the traits of
interactors can enhance the predictability of ecological outcomes. We
examine here whether the multidimensional behavioural-trait diversity of
communities influences community performance and stability in situ. We
created experimental communities of web-building spiders, each with an
identical species composition. Communities contained one individual of
each of five different species. Prior to establishing these communities in
the field, we examined three behavioural traits for each individual
spider. These behavioural measures allowed us to estimate community-wide
behavioural diversity, as inferred by the multidimensional behavioural
volume occupied by the entire community. Communities that occupied a
larger region of behavioural-trait space (i.e. where spiders differed more
from each other behaviourally) gained more mass and were less likely to
disband. Thus, there is a community-wide benefit to multidimensional
behavioural diversity in this system that might translate to other
multispecies assemblages.