Colour-Cue Based Training and Memory in a Jumping Spider - Siler Semiglaucus (Aranaea: Salticidae) YY LUO1 , AP AGUNG2 & DMNJ DISSANAYAKE 3, 4
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Colour-cue based training and memory in a jumping spider - Siler semiglaucus (Aranaea: Salticidae) YY LUO1 , AP AGUNG2 & DMNJ DISSANAYAKE 3, 4 1 School of Biological Sciences, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR 2 Museum Zoologi Universitas Andalas, Andalas University, Indonesia 3 Centre for Mountain Ecosystem Studies, Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China 4 University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, China What is a jumping spider? • Jumping spiders are in the arachnid family Salticidae • Highly diverse, over 5900 species (WSC, 2016) • Impressive courtship displays and bright colouration • Excellent eyesight and colour vision – diurnal hunters (Richman & Jackson, 1992) Jumping Spider Vision • Eyesight is important in jumping spider ecology (Richman & Jackson 1992) • Excellent colour vision and visual acuity (Jackson & Blest 1982) Jumping Spider Vision Primary Eyes • The primary eyes are used for sharp vision and colour vision Lateral Eyes • The lateral eyes are used for movement detection Richman & Jackson(1992) Jumping Spider Anatomy Abdomen Head Abdomen Head Brain Learning in Jumping Spiders • They can form colour-associated preferences for food (Taylor et al, 2015) – and retained the memory for 2 weeks • They will avoid colours associated with heat (Nakamura & Yamashita, 2000) – but forgot after 1 day • Testing success is associated with number of correct choices in learning trials (Jakob et al 2007) Research Gap • How quickly do jumping spiders learn trained behaviour associated with positive environmental stimuli? • What is the duration of trained memory in jumping spiders? Project Introduction Project Questions: 1. Can jumping spiders be trained using multiple short training trials? 2. For how long do jumping spiders remember their training ? Study Species • 7 Females ; 4 Males ; 22 Juveniles Female Male Siler semiglaucus Training and Testing Materials • 2 colour reversed Y-shaped mazes • Red and green colour used to indicate positive stimulus (Colder temperature) • Wet and dry sponges (training only) • Room temperature : 44-48 °C Training Procedure • Explore until they settled in a chamber • Record the time • 8 training • Every 2 trials the maze was alternated • Success = settled in correct chamber • Failure = settled in wrong chamber / moving arround more than 5 minutes Testing Procedure 1 hr test Passed Failed 6 hr test Passed Failed 24 hr test Statistical Analysis • Response time Vs No. of Trials • LME (Linier Mixed Effect model) • Temporal pseudo replicates effect removed • Testing of memory retain (1|6|24 Hours) • GLMER (Generalized linear mixed effect model) • Temporal pseudo replicates effect removed • R version 3.3.1 (R Development Core Team, 2016) • Packages • nlme version 3.1-128 (Pinheiro et al, 2016) • lme4 version 1.1-12 (Bates et al,2016) Results & Discussion Non-transformed Log Transformed Results & Discussion Learning Ability LME • Time reduction with the number of trainings • Significant (p value < 0.05) Time.ln Trial No. Results & Discussion Learning Ability • Significant reduction in training time compared to the 1st trial • 3rd trial non-significant Time.ln 1&2 3&4 5&6 7&8 • Side bias was removed Trial No. • It’s the colour not the side Results & Discussion Learning Ability LME • Interactions within each trial • Trials 4, 5, 6, 7, & 8 are more similar • No significant difference Time.ln Trial No. Results & Discussion Memory Retention 35 GLMER 30 Other Fails • Differences between each test group 25 13 are highly significant 13 18 Failed 20 Success • They retain learned memory 5 15 • After 1 hour YES 20 • > 6 hours “YES” 9 • >24 hours ? 10 15 5 • Forget after 1 day (Nakamura & 6 Yamashita, 2000) 0 • Retained for 2 week (Taylor et al, 1 Hour 6 Hours 24 Hours 2015) Conclusions • Jumping spiders can be trained within few trials to associate a colour with a positive stimulus • Memory retention lasts for less than a day Future Work • Long-term training investigation would be a further improvement • Differences between sexes about learning and memory retention could be further investigated with higher sample sizes Acknowledgments Zhanqi CHEN Jingxin LIU Kyle TOMLINSON Alice HUGHES Richard CORLETT All our AFEC-X friends! Any questions?.