The contribution of developmental experience vs. condition to life history, trait variation, and individual differences

Developmental experience, for example food abundance during juvenile stages, is known to affect life history and behaviour. However, the life history and behavioural consequences of developmental experience have rarely been studied in concert. As a result it is still unclear whether developmental experience affects behaviour through changes in life history, or independently of it. The effect of developmental experience on life history and behaviour may also be masked or affected by individual condition during adulthood. Thus, it is critical to tease apart the effects of developmental experience and current individual condition on life history and behaviour. In this study we manipulated food abundance during development in the western black widow spider, Latrodectus hesperus, by rearing spiders on either a restricted or ad lib diet. We separated developmental from condition dependent effects by assaying adult foraging behaviour (tendency to attack prey and to stay on out of the refuge fo...