Dataset Information

Specialists and generalists coexist within a population of spider-hunting mud dauber wasps.

ABSTRACT: Individual foraging specialization describes the phenomenon where conspecifics within a population of generalists exhibit differences in foraging behavior, each specializing on different prey types. Individual specialization is widespread in animals, yet is understudied in invertebrates, despite potential impacts to food web and population dynamics. Sceliphron caementarium (Hymenoptera: Sphecidae) is an excellent system to examine individual specialization. Females of these mud dauber wasps capture and paralyze spiders which they store in mud nests to provision their offspring. Individuals may make hundreds of prey choices in their short lifespan and fully intact prey items can be easily excavated from their mud nests, where each distinct nest cell represents a discrete foraging bout. Using data collected from a single population of S. caementarium (where all individuals had access to the same resources), we found evidence of strong individual specialization; individuals utilized different resources (with respect to prey taxa, prey ecological guild, and prey size) to provision their nests. The extent of individual specialization differed widely within the population with some females displaying extreme specialization (taking only prey from a single species) while others were generalists (taking prey from up to 6 spider families). We also found evidence of temporal consistency in individual specialization over multiple foraging events. We discuss these findings broadly in the context of search images, responses to changing prey availability, and intraspecific competition pressure.

SUBMITTER: Powell EC

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5873241 | biostudies-literature | 2017 May-Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Specialists and generalists coexist within a population of spider-hunting mud dauber wasps.

Powell Erin C EC Taylor Lisa A LA

Behavioral ecology : official journal of the International Society for Behavioral Ecology 20170401 3

Individual foraging specialization describes the phenomenon where conspecifics within a population of generalists exhibit differences in foraging behavior, each specializing on different prey types. Individual specialization is widespread in animals, yet is understudied in invertebrates, despite potential impacts to food web and population dynamics<i>. Sceliphron caementarium</i> (Hymenoptera: Sphecidae) is an excellent system to examine individual specialization. Females of these mud dauber was ...[more]

PMID: 29622922

Similar Datasets

Project description:Abstract Specialization is a widespread but highly ambiguous and context‐dependent ecological concept. This quality makes comparisons across related studies difficult and makes associated terms such as “specialist” and “generalist” scientifically obscure. Here, we present a metric‐based framework to quantify specialization in 141 Quercus species using functional traits, biogeography, and species interactions. Rankings of specialization based on five metrics were used to answer questions about how specialization is used colloquially (i.e., individual species assessment by experts) and influenced by phylogenetics (Ancestral Character State Reconstruction, Automatic Shift Detection), biogeography (patterns of clustering by region and with climate), and species threat level (IUCN Red List). Metric‐based ranking can be representative of specialization in a consistent and practical manner, correlating with IUCN Red List data, and the mean scores of individual expert assessments. Specialization is shown to be highly correlated with precipitation seasonality and only moderately influenced by evolutionary history. Data‐deficient species were more likely to be highly specialized, and higher specialization was positively correlated with greater IUCN threat level. Frameworks for characterizing specialization and generalization can be done using metric ranking and can turn concepts that are often unclear into a definitive system. Metric‐based rankings of specialization can also be used to reveal interesting insights about a clade's evolutionary history and geographic distribution when paired with the related phylogenetic and geographic data. Metric‐based rankings can be applied to other systems and be a valuable tool for identifying species at risk and in need of conservation. A variety of metrics related to specialization are used to quantify and rank the concept in 141 species of Quercus (oaks). These rankings are used to explore evolutionary and biogeographic patterns, as well as specialization as a concept's usage by scientists.

Dataset Information

Specialists and generalists coexist within a population of spider-hunting mud dauber wasps.

Publications

Specialists and generalists coexist within a population of spider-hunting mud dauber wasps.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets