Clear Motion Patterns Produce Stages of Spider Web Construction

Publication date: October 6, 2021 DOI: https : //doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2021.09.030

Description

The geometric complexity and ever-present behavior of spider webs have long attracted interest in the origins of their algorithms.

The construction of a web, among other examples of animal architecture, is said to be the result of several assembly stages driven by distinct behavioral stages coordinated to build a successful structure. Manual observation revealed a variety of sensory cues and movement patterns used during web construction, but since we lacked a way to systematically quantify the dynamics of these sensory-motor patterns, we apply an analytical pipeline to quantify the web creation behavior of the orb-weaver Uloborusdiversus.

Location tracking revealed the stages of stereotype construction that may occur in typical and atypical progressions between individuals. An unsupervised clustering approach was used to identify general and stage-specific leg movements.

A hierarchical hidden Markov model revealed that the Web construction stages are characterized by a sequence of stereotypical actions shared among individuals, regardless of whether they proceed in a typical or atypical manner in these stages.

Web stages can be predicted based solely on action sequences, revealing that the geometry of web stages is a physical manifestation of behavioral transition regimes.