1976] 
Aspey — Response Strategies of Schizocosa 
103 
did not result in that animal’s retreating. If Subordinate spiders 
performed Vibrate-Thrust or Horizontal Extend, they then re- 
verted to retreating, avoidance behaviors. When transition proba- 
bilities were examined separately for Dominant and Subordinate 
spiders, striking differences in response strategies were evident. 
Although eight Intermediate spiders were also identified (Aspey, 
1976b), a meaningful kinematic diagram of their intra-individual 
response strategy could not be constructed with so few spiders. 
However, Intermediate spiders were typically approach-oriented, 
and made Contact preliminary to resolving rank differences with 
Dominant opponents. With Subordinate opponents, Intermediate 
spiders exhibited Oblique Extend, the only time a foreleg posture 
characteristic of Dominant spiders was exhibited (Aspey, 1976b). 
If these intra-individual behavior sequences reflect a spider’s 
responsiveness to its own behavior (i.e., feedback), then Dominant 
spiders exhibit the potential for more versatile response strategies 
during agonistic interactions than Subordinate spiders, presuma- 
bly allowing greater flexibility when responding to conspecifics. 
Hazlett and Estabrook (1974a,b) also reported similar results re- 
garding the response behavior of winning animals. Thus, Domi- 
nant and Subordinate spiders can not only be reliably identified 
on the basis of responses made by conspecifics toward them during 
agonistic interactions, but also by the response strategy exhibited 
during intra-individual behavior sequences. 
Acknowledgments 
I gratefully acknowledge Dr. Jerome S. Rovner, Department of 
Zoology and Microbiology, Ohio University, for his helpful guid- 
ance and encouragement throughout all phases of this research, as 
well as for his useful discussions of the material. Dr. H. Dijkstra 
and Dr. S.W.F. van der Ploeg, Free University, Amsterdam, The 
Netherlands, kindly offered helpful discussion and commented on 
Fig. 1. [opposite] Transitional probabilities during intra-individual behavior se- 
quences in Dominant adult male Schizocosa crassipes. Arrows connecting the 
agonistic behaviors represent significant linkages (p <0.01) between and among the 
behaviors. The relative thickness of the arrows indicates the percent of time one 
agonistic behavior followed another. The relative size of each circle represents the 
number of different behaviors significantly linked with that behavior. Descriptions 
of the behaviors are given in Aspey (1976b). 
