Vegetarian spider... what the hell?

[Rosinbio]

I have now read the Current Biology article, and some other papers referred to therein, and it seems we can put Rosinbio's fears of the authors being mistaken to rest. Apart from close observations, and "high definition videography", there is also extensive and convincing evidence from stable-isotope analysis of the ants, the plants, the spiders, and other spiders in the area:



They continue by noting that 89 +/- 13.2% of the C and N comes directly from the plants, and 8 +/- 7.9% comes indirectly from the plant-eating ants, giving the diet of the spider a heavy vegetarian slant. This was established by methods unfamiliar to me, but which can be found in the supplementary material, which I have not yet read. They continue:



But note that Costa Rican populations had a larger proportion of animal prey in their diet.

There is no end of interesting stuff in this article, though. They note, further, that the range of this species "coincides with that of ant-acacia systems throughout Mesoamerica", and that they are almost exclusively found on these plants. They speculate that, as the ants keep most other insects away from the acacias -- including, presumably, ones that might feed on the spiders -- the spiders may have "achieved herbivory by exploiting plant goods exchanged for animal services", which sort of makes sense. They can't eat too many of the ants, because then the acacia-ant system would be disrupted, and predators on the spiders would be introduced into the system. But they still need to feed on something, and the Beltian bodies are available.

Th article refers to two other cases of omnivory among spiders, though in neither case are these as elaborate as in Bagheera kiplingi. I have not yet read these articles (references below), but apparently some juvenile orb-weavers eat pollen which collect on their nets (Smith & Mommsen, 1984), though Meehan et al. suggests that this is more or less an accident, as they ingest them only when recycling their nets. Jckson et al. reported that 31 of 90 studied species of jumping spiders supplemented their diet with nectar, and apparently (from the abstract) did so to get sucrose, rather than water.

In all, a very interesting field, and the presence and wide spread of nectarvory in the Salticidae could certainly make the transition to herbivory more plausible, if there were already species that supplemented their diet with non-animalian food.

---
Jackson, Pollard, Nelson, Edwards & Barrion (2001): Jumping spiders (Araneae: Salticidae) that feed on nectar. Journal of Zoology 255, 25-29.

Meehan, Olson, Reudink, Kyser, Curry (2009): Herbivory in a spider through exploitation of an ant-plant mutualism. Current Biology 19, R892-R893.

Smith & Mommsen (1984): Pollen Feeding in an orb-weaving spider. Science 226, 1330-1332.

Thanks for the information!

 

[Rosinbio]

Depending on the publisher of the journal, there are differences in degree of how adamant they are in pursuing people who, essentially, republish things without the publisher's permission. While you can often find PDF copies of a certain author's publications on his own webpage, and places like Chost literature lists with PDFs on a variety of groups (1), I have heard of cases where people doing so have received, at least, stern letters from their publisher, advising them to stop doing so. The Scratchpad crew, as I understand it, allows it as long as they are not informed about it, so that they can cite plausible deniability in case publishers get nasty...

Nevertheless, those, I would say, are cases where it might be reasonable to assume that posting a PDF should be allowed (even if it is not), albeit perhaps with some delay. This is an entirely different situation.

---
(1) If you haven't looked at it: do so! It is an excellent taxonomy and biodiversity data page!

Mever heard of the "scratchpad", before. Will certainly look it up.

 

[Rosinbio]

It would be pointless anyway - what with

Obsessing About The Bee Dance Conspiracy - 50%
Massaging Your Ego - 50%

you don't actually have any wiggle room left...

The honeybee conspiracy, as well as my ego, are all in your head, which needs a thorough cleaning!

 

[Rosinbio]

How ungrateful of you.

The information I supplied on Olson was in response to this post by you,
I was providing help on where you could source information regarding the original discovery, since you seemed unable to do the search for your self.

And do not presume to reside inside my head, either.

I acted as I did not for any reason you might have surmised, but simply because I decided it would be wisest to wait for the latest publication on this whole issue, i.e. the 2009 publication in Current Biology.

 

[Rosinbio]

The idea of fair use is part of copyright law. In that case of something factual like this, the rules are fairly loose (that is, they allow for quite a bit of use.) They also aren't clearly written out anywhere for people to go down a checklist and say, "Yep, that's legal."

You would be perfectly safe in posting excerpts from the article to back up an argument you had made or in receiving a copy of the article from the author (assuming the author agreed that your intent fit the requirements that he/she agreed to when transferring the copyright to the publisher.)

What we do here doesn't qualify as educational or research use, so the rules that publishers follow regarding fair use are more restrictive as well, but again there is no clear rule about it. For educational purposes, publishers and educators have agreed to allow a teacher at an educational institution, you can take a legally obtained copy of the article and make copies for your students, for example (with some restrictions concerning the length, purpose, and frequency of use.) They are not allowed to take those copies and further distribute them, however.

You would not be safe in posting the whole article here because it's only purpose in being posted here would be to circumvent the fee system set up by Current Biology. In that you would be no different than someone who illegally posted a legally obtained mp3 for free distribution (suppose it's on a music theory forum so that the comparison is valid.) You would not be safe in going to a library and copying the work from the Current Biology issue and posting it here either (that is, from the copyright holder.)

Finally, copyright law exists so that the copyright holder can make money from intellectual labor. If you want to debate whether that is the best system to use, that's fine, but that's the way the law is, so at the moment your opinion about how Current Biology should be making money is irrelevant.

I am pleased to find out that te rules concerning "fair use" can be interpreted in many different ways.

I consider the purpose of Forum menbers who wish to read the article, as being primarily, or even exclusively, to educate themselves. And they do not need to be anyone's registered students, to be entitled to seek education.

My opinion of what the publisher aught to be satisfied with is, of course, irrelevant, But, I was thinking of interested readers, that would not purchase the article; which means that they are not at all prospective customers that the publisher would lose. Making the article easily available to them for free, is only going to save them, as well as the author, considerable, undue hassle,

 

[davefoc]

I am pleased to find out that te rules concerning "fair use" can be interpreted in many different ways.

I consider the purpose of Forum menbers who wish to read the article, as being primarily, or even exclusively, to educate themselves. And they do not need to be anyone's registered students, to be entitled to seek education.

My opinion of what the publisher aught to be satisfied with is, of course, irrelevant, But, I was thinking of interested readers, that would not purchase the article; which means that they are not at all prospective customers that the publisher would lose. Making the article easily available to them for free, is only going to save them, as well as the author, considerable, undue hassle,

You seem to be saying two things with regard to the issue of fair use:
1. The fair use copyright exception might allow the posting of a copyrighted scientific paper on some internet forum.
2. The fair use copyright exception might allow the posting of a copyrighted scientific paper on the JREF forum.

I think you are wrong on both contentions. Access to copyrighted scientific papers is blocked because the copyright holders think they can make more money limiting access to the documents. I doubt that they would block access to a document and then allow some random internet forum to publish it instead.

Regardless of whether the above is true, I have been around here for many years now and have a pretty good idea of what is allowed in the JREF forum. Posting the complete version of a copyrighted article is not allowed. I have repeatedly seen all manner of copyrighted material removed, quickly enough that all that is left is the violation notice by the time I view the thread. The JREF forum administrators take copyright law seriously and if they err they err on the side of caution. If you have the slightest doubt about this, create a thread in the management section and post your theories about how fair use copyright exceptions would allow you to post a complete version of a copyrighted document on the JREF forum.

 

[jasonpatterson]

I consider the purpose of Forum menbers who wish to read the article, as being primarily, or even exclusively, to educate themselves. And they do not need to be anyone's registered students, to be entitled to seek education.

The rules for educational fair use have been established by publishers and educators (formal educators, that is) and don't apply to someone on an internet forum, regardless of the posters' intent in reading the article. They represent a lower limit to what is allowed, that is, what copyright holders will not sue educational institutions for.

For any of this to matter, Current Biology would have to actually sue the person posting it, and as davefoc mentions, there are pretty strict rules on this forum specifically about posting copyrighted material in any form.

 

[EHocking]

...there are pretty strict rules on this forum specifically about posting copyrighted material in any form.

... and I supplied relevant quotes from, and a link to, the Current Biology copyright rules for authors in Post 36