9 - Spinning a stronger story

Summary

Reasoning by means of analogies is risky. The metaphors of the preceding pages arose as innocently concocted literary devices and nothing more; they were not intended to parallel nature's deeper structure. Yet stylistic creations spring from particular world views, which filter results of scientific investigations and gaze more favorably on some approaches than others. I have tried to shape the spider as a model terrestrial predator, who acts out the script of a drama staged and casted in the complexities of the ecological web. As interpreters of this theater, we cannot sit back and watch passively, because we are ignorant of what occurs behind the scenes, offstage. In order to understand the hidden scripts, we must jump onto the stage and challenge the actors - probe and poke, remove their masks and look behind the props. In short, we must rely on field experiments. My biases have been clear. They merit scrutiny, because they color my interpretation of what has so far been learned of spiders in their ecological webs.

Ecological dramas

The spider persona

What have we discovered about the spider persona? The spider is usually hungry. When given more prey than it normally encounters, the spider grows faster and produces more eggs. Sometimes it will wander less when food becomes more abundant, but at other times it apparently behaves independently of its recent feeding history. Despite the fact that food is frequently a limited resource, spiders do not commonly compete with other spider species for prey.