Vibratory Communication in the Jumping Spider Phidippus clarus: Substrateborne Courtship Signals are Important for Male Mating Success

Many animals, especially arthropods, use substrateborne vibration signals in communication (Hill 2008, 2009). Substrate-borne vibrations have been demonstrated as an important mode of communication in bugs (Virant-Doberlet & Cokl 2004; Cocroft & Rodriguez 2005; Rodriguez et al. 2008), lacewings (Henry 1994; Henry et al. 2002), wolf spiders (Uetz & Roberts 2002; Hebets & Papaj 2005; Gibson & Uetz 2008; Hebets 2008; Shamble et al. 2009), wandering spiders (reviewed in Barth 2002), and jumping spiders (Elias et al. 2005, 2006a, 2008) but only in a few species. This has resulted in a relatively poor understanding of the general features and function of vibratory signals in communication. Vibratory signals are often combined with other modalities, to produce complex, multimodal displays (Uetz & Roberts 2002; Hebets & Papaj 2005; Partan & Marler 2005). Much recent work has focused on the evolution and function of such complex signaling in courtship displays of certain spider groups (Hebets & Uetz 1999; Uetz & Roberts 2002; Elias et al. 2003, 2006a, 2008; Taylor et al. 2005; Delaney et al. 2007; Gibson & Uetz 2008; Uetz et al. 2009), but data across a variety of species is still scarce, and Correspondence Damian O. Elias, Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-3114, USA. E-mail: [email protected]