Exploring behavioral differences of wolf spiders (genus Hogna) using video tracking software

Inter-individual variation in behavior has been observed in a diverse array of animals. However, investigations explicitly exploring these differences in behavior have only been conducted in the last two decades. These animal personalities, or interindividual behavioral differences that are consistent through time and context, have been found to have significant ecological and evolutionary consequences. Therefore, investigating and characterizing animal personality can act as a baseline to further investigate these ecological considerations. Here, we evaluate personalities and behavioral syndromes in wolf spiders, Hogna sp., across five behavioral axes: exploration, activity, boldness, voracity, and reactivity. We expect to find a spectrum of behavioral types in these spiders. We predict that activity, boldness, and exploration will form a behavioral syndrome as seen in many other animals. These behavioral axes were investigated in both male and female adult spiders using an open field arena, a maze, and camera setups to film the behavioral trials. To bypass the extensive human work requirement of personality studies and potential observer bias, we use automated video-tracking software BIO to score behavioral videos. We find evidence for different behavioral types and potential behavioral syndromes across the spiders tested. These results will be used in future work investigating the role of visual traits in explaining personality in wolf spiders.