In response to their diet, they optimise the size, strength and stickiness of their webs for catching whatever prey is around, say researchers today in the Royal Society journal Open Science.
"When a fly or cricket hits a spider web, the web has to intercept the prey and hold it there until the spider comes and feeds," says Dr Sean Blamire, an evolutionary biologist at the University of New South Wales.
But different prey strike the web with different forces and vibrate it in different ways in their attempt to escape.
"Crickets strike the web with more force and kick off against the web, causing pulse-like vibrations," says Blamires. "Flies buzz rather than pulse and put less stress on the web."
Given the cost of producing strong webs, spiders have to design their web to account for this so they don't invest in silk when they don't need to, says Blamires.
Previous research has suggested that spiders on different diets have different webs, but the question is what aspect of the prey is giving spiders the information they need to customise their web for different prey?
Blamires and colleagues investigated two possible cues influencing web design, in a complex experiment that involved feeding orb-weaving spiders Nephilia pilipes flies and crickets.
The researchers looked at the impact of different vibrations given off by prey attempting to escape the web.
They then looked at the impact of different nutrients extracted by spiders from the prey.
Blamires and colleagues found that it was these nutrients that were the main driver of web architecture.
He says this makes sense because spiders need to make sure they have enough protein to keep building webs.
Read more at Discovery News
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