Computational analyses of dynamic visual courtship display reveal diet-dependent and plastic male signaling in Rabidosa rabida wolf spiders

Abstract

It has long been a challenge to quantify the variation in dynamic motions to understand how those displays function in animal communication. The traditional approach is dependent on labor-intensive manual identification/annotation by experts. However, the recent progress in computational techniques provides researchers with toolsets for rapid, objective, and reproducible quantification of dynamic visual displays. In the present study, we investigated the effects of diet manipulation on dynamic visual components of male courtship displays of Rabidosa rabida wolf spiders using machine learning algorithms. Our results suggest that (i) the computational approach can provide an insight into the variation in the dynamic visual display between high- and low-diet males which is not clearly shown with the traditional approach and (ii) males may plastically alter their courtship display according to the body size of females they encounter. Through the present study, we add an example of the utilization of recent computational techniques for understanding the evolution of animal behaviors.