Data from: Male cooperation improves their own and kin-group productivity in a group-foraging spider

This data set empirically demonstrates the selective benefits cooperators generate for themselves and the group in the subsocial spider, Australomisidia ergandros. This spider shows distinct and consistent cooperation and defection strategy while hunting. Cooperative spiders consistently share prey with other group members but defector spiders rarely share the prey they hunted. We show that pure cooperative groups acquired hunted more quickly with greater joint participation than pure defector groups. Moreover, we also show that defectors suffered higher mortality than cooperators and lost considerable weight. Using a social network approach, we discovered that males are more likely to cooperate than females.