Resource availability, competition, and the web structure of western black widows

This dataset originates from an experiment using black widow spiders (Latrodectus hesperus) originally collected from Davis, California, United-States and brought to the University of Arizona, where they were maintained under laboratory condition for 12 months. Spiders were then transferred to Pierre-Olivier Montiglio's laboratory in Montreal in Canada, where they were kept for a month prior to the experiment. During this time, spiders were housed in individual plastic containers (946 ml) at 23˚C ± 1.50 and 25 % humidity ± 8.94 with a photoperiod of 12h, and fed a single live house cricket (Acheta domesticus) every two weeks.
Spiders were then fed for 8 weeks either a cricket every three weeks (Restricted treatment), a cricket every two weeks (Intermediate treatment), or a cricket every week (Ad libitum treatment) for 8 weeks. Each spider experienced each of the three food treatments in an order that was randomly determined. At the end of each 8-week food treatment, spiders were left to...