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RETRACTED ARTICLE: Individual- and condition-dependent effects on habitat choice and choosiness

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This article was retracted on 11 March 2021

09 July 2020 Editor’s Note: Concerns have been raised about the integrity of the data reported in this article. These are currently being investigated. Further editorial action may be taken as appropriate once the investigation into the concerns is complete and all parties have been given an opportunity to respond in full.

This article has been updated

Abstract

Research on consistent individual differences in behavior, or “behavioral syndromes”, continues to grow rapidly, and yet, the aspects of behavior under consideration have remained remarkably limited. Here, we consider individual variation in consistency of choice (termed here “choosiness”), as expressed during habitat choice. We repeatedly tested the responses of female Western Black Widows, Latrodectus hesperus, to two cues of habitat quality: prey chemical cues and variation in web site illuminance. We estimated females’ response by the distance they positioned themselves from (1) the source of prey chemical cues and (2) the darkest edge of our test arena. Individuals with low variance in their responses are deemed more “choosy”, whereas individuals with high variance are deemed less “choosy”. Generally, most females initiated web construction near the source of the prey chemical cues and tended to place themselves in low-light conditions. However, we detected strong, repeatable differences in females’ intensity of response, and within-individual variance of response (i.e., choosiness) was correlated across situations: females with highly consistent responses towards cricket chemical cues also exhibited highly consistent responses towards variation in light conditions. When deprived of food for extended periods, females were indistinguishable in their responses towards prey chemical cues, but tended to initiate web construction in brighter lighting conditions. Food-deprived females universally exhibited higher variance and diminished consistency in their responses (i.e., they were less choosy). Additionally, higher choosiness was associated with greater mass loss during choice trials, suggesting choosiness is energetically costly. Our results demonstrate that consistency of response to environmental cues is yet another element of behavior that varies among individuals and variation in choosiness could beget speed/quality trade-offs during animal decision making.

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Change history

  • 09 July 2020

    Editor’s Note: Concerns have been raised about the integrity of the data reported in this article. These are currently being investigated. Further editorial action may be taken as appropriate once the investigation into the concerns is complete and all parties have been given an opportunity to respond in full.

  • 11 March 2021

    A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-021-02997-3

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Stephanie Kamel, Kyle Demes, Mark Hauber, and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on previous versions of this manuscript. SKF was supported by Humboldt fellowship for postdoctoral researchers. Funds for this project were awarded by a fellowship from the Center for Population Biology to JNP.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Center for Population Biology, University of California, Davis, CA, 95616, USA

    Jonathan N. Pruitt & Andrew Sih

  2. Department of Biological Sciences, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, 15260, USA

    Jonathan N. Pruitt

  3. Animal Behavior Graduate Group, Department of Neurobiology, Physiology, and Behavior, University of California, Davis, CA, 95616, USA

    Nicholas DiRienzo

  4. Biozentrum Grindel, University of Hamburg, Martin-Luther-King Platz 3, 20146, Hamburg, Germany

    Simona Kralj-Fišer

  5. Institute of Biology, Scientific Research Centre, Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, SI 1000, Ljubljana, Slovenia

    Simona Kralj-Fišer

  6. Division of Mathematical and Natural Sciences (2352), Arizona State University, West Thunderbird Rd., Glendale, AZ, 85306, USA

    J. Chadwick Johnson

  7. Department of Environmental Science and Policy, University of California, Davis, CA, 95616, USA

    Andrew Sih

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  1. Jonathan N. Pruitt
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Correspondence to Jonathan N. Pruitt.

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Communicated by M. Hauber

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Pruitt, J.N., DiRienzo, N., Kralj-Fišer, S. et al. RETRACTED ARTICLE: Individual- and condition-dependent effects on habitat choice and choosiness. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 65, 1987–1995 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-011-1208-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-011-1208-0

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