Behavioural Flexibility in Spider Mites: Oviposition Site Shifts Based on Past and Present Stimuli from Conspecifics and Predators

Predator-experienced individuals often change their predation avoidance response when they re-encounter the same predators or their cues. Recent reports show that behavioural change sometimes occurs even before the re-encounter. To function as an adaptive strategy in the wild, such prospective experience-induced behaviour should change flexibly in response to changing situations. We assessed flexibility of experience-induced oviposition site shift in two closely related species of spider mites, and , from the viewpoint of reducing future predation risk on their eggs. We found that: (i) individuals of shifted oviposition site depending on the presence of conspecific eggs; (ii) after experiencing predation threat females shifted oviposition site even in the absence of any current predation threat; (iii) this experience-induced shift of oviposition site was weakened in the presence of conspecific males; and (iv) experience-induced behaviour was retained for a shorter period in than in , possibly because the demand for learning may differ with regard to biological conditions encountered in the wild.