Before using estimators, it is essential to consider their efficiency in order to avoid bias in results. Due to the architectural and structural complexity of spider webs, some important variables involved in prey capture are usually estimated based on a few measurements obtained from photographs. One of these variables is the capture thread length (CTL), which can provide valuable information on foraging behaviours and the energetic investment in prey capture. However, many of the webs found in the field are damaged, and there is no automatic method to measure the CTL. Therefore, the determination of a simple and accurate estimator of this variable is important to several studies involving spider foraging strategies. In this study, we assessed the accuracy of traditional and new CTL estimators and their vulnerability to web shape and asymmetry. Our results validated the accuracy of the previous estimators. However, we also presented a simple new estimator that can be even more accurate, irrespective of whether the webs exhibit circular shapes or asymmetry in thread investment between superior and inferior web parts. Moreover, we presented an accurate CTL estimator for non-circular orb webs, for which the traditional ones are not applicable.

中文翻译：

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走向简单性和准确性：评估 Orb-Web 捕获线程长度的传统和新估计器

在使用估算器之前，必须考虑它们的效率以避免结果中的偏差。由于蜘蛛网的结构和结构的复杂性，猎物捕获中涉及的一些重要变量通常是根据从照片中获得的一些测量值来估计的。这些变量之一是捕获线长度 (CTL)，它可以提供有关觅食行为和猎物捕获能量投资的宝贵信息。但是，现场发现的许多网都已损坏，并且没有自动测量 CTL 的方法。因此，确定该变量的简单而准确的估计值对于涉及蜘蛛觅食策略的多项研究非常重要。在这项研究中，我们评估了传统和新 CTL 估计器的准确性及其对网络形状和不对称性的脆弱性。我们的结果验证了先前估计量的准确性。然而，我们还提出了一个简单的新估计器，它可以更加准确，无论腹板是否呈现圆形或优劣腹板部件之间的螺纹投资不对称。此外，我们为非圆形球网提供了一个准确的 CTL 估计器，传统方法不适用。