How (not) to train your spider: successful and unsuccessful methods for studying learning

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Spiders are capable of learning in many different contexts, including prey capture, social interactions and predator avoidance. In recent years, there has been an upturn in the number of published studies of learning in spiders, with a particular interest in active hunters that do not build prey-capture webs. However, as is often the case when developing protocols for studying learning in a new taxonomic group, many researchers have tested methods that failed to produce interpretable results. These methods largely remain unpublished, although knowing what has already been attempted would be of great benefit to the community of researchers that work on arthropod learning. Here, we briefly review published methods that have been successful in demonstrating learning in actively hunting spiders, as well as report on unpublished, unsuccessful methods that we collected from the research community.