scholarly journals No actual conflict over colony inheritance despite high potential conflict in the social wasp Polistes dominulus

2009 ◽  
Vol 276 (1662) ◽  
pp. 1593-1601 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thibaud Monnin ◽  
Alessandro Cini ◽  
Vincent Lecat ◽  
Pierre Fédérici ◽  
Claudie Doums
Keyword(s):  
Inclusive Fitness ◽  
Social Wasp ◽  
Egg Laying ◽  
Polistes Dominulus ◽  
Potential Conflict ◽  
Fitness Consequences ◽  
Insect Societies ◽  
The Social ◽  
Laboratory Colonies ◽  
Egg Destruction

Social insect societies are outstanding examples of cooperation and conflict. Individuals work together, yet seek to increase their inclusive fitness at each others' expense. One such conflict is over colony inheritance, when a queen inherits the colony following the death of the previous queen. Colony inheritance is common in the social wasp Polistes dominulus , and it can have dramatic fitness consequences. The subordinate inheriting the colony is often unrelated to the initial foundress (alpha) and the workers, who therefore get zero inclusive fitness. Workers are capable of mating and reproducing, so that inheritance by a subordinate rather than by a related worker is surprising. Using patterns of egg-laying and egg destruction, we show in 32 laboratory colonies that, upon the removal of alpha, workers fully accepted a subordinate as the new breeder. This new alpha monopolized reproduction to the same extent as alpha, and there was no increase in reproduction by workers and other subordinates. Why workers accept a potentially unrelated subordinate as breeder rather than a full-sister worker is unclear. They may be constrained to do so, and they may seek fitness benefits by producing males later in the season or by absconding the nest.

Pre-imaginal biasing of caste in a primitively eusocial insect

1988 ◽  
Vol 233 (1271) ◽  
pp. 175-189 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Adult Life ◽  
Social Wasp ◽  
Caste Differentiation ◽  
Egg Laying ◽  
Ropalidia Marginata ◽  
Eusocial Insect ◽  
Eusocial Insects ◽  
Insect Societies ◽  
The Social ◽  
Primitively Eusocial

Primitively eusocial insects often lack morphological caste differentiation, leading to considerable flexibility in the social and reproductive roles that the adult insects may adopt. Although this flexibility and its consequences for social organization have received much attention there has been relatively little effort to detect any pre-imaginal effects leading to a bias in the potential caste of eclosing females. Experiments reported here show that only about 50 % of eclosing females of the tropical social wasp Ropalidia marginata build nests and lay eggs, in spite of being isolated from all conspecifics and being provided ad libitum food since eclosion. The number of empty cells in the parent nest, which we believe to be an indication of the queen’s declining influence, and a wasp’s own rate of feeding during adult life predict the probability of egg laying by eclosing females. These results call for an examination of the possibility that all females in primitively eusocial insect societies are not potentially capable of becoming egg layers and that reigning queens and possibly other adults exert an influence on the production of new queens.

Soluble proteins of chemical communication in the social wasp Polistes dominulus

2003 ◽  
Vol 60 (9) ◽  
pp. 1933-1943 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Calvello ◽  
N. Guerra ◽  
A. Brandazza ◽  
C. D'Ambrosio ◽  
A. Scaloni ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Chemical Communication ◽  
Social Wasp ◽  
Soluble Proteins ◽  
Polistes Dominulus ◽  
The Social

The Cost of Queen Loss in the Social Wasp Polistes dominulus (Hymenoptera: Vespidae)

2004 ◽  
Vol 77 (4) ◽  
pp. 343-355 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joan E. Strassmann ◽  
Angelo Fortunato ◽  
Rita Cervo ◽  
Stefano Turillazzi ◽  
Jesse M. Damon ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Wasp ◽  
Polistes Dominulus ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Cost

scholarly journals Direct assessment of queen quality and lack of worker suppression in a paper wasp

2005 ◽  
Vol 272 (1570) ◽  
pp. 1339-1344 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jürgen Liebig ◽  
Thibaud Monnin ◽  
Stefano Turillazzi
Keyword(s):  
Reproductive Output ◽  
Ovarian Development ◽  
Inclusive Fitness ◽  
Reproductive Activity ◽  
Egg Laying ◽  
Paper Wasp ◽  
Polistes Dominulus ◽  
Queen Policing ◽  
Reproductive Conflicts ◽  
Animal Societies

Assessing a conspecific's potential is often crucial to increase one's fitness, e.g. in female choice, contests with rivals or reproductive conflicts in animal societies. In the latter, helpers benefit from accurately assessing the fertility of the breeder as an indication of inclusive fitness. There is evidence that this can be achieved using chemical correlates of reproductive activity. Here, we show that queen quality can be assessed by directly monitoring her reproductive output. In the paper wasp Polistes dominulus , we mimicked a decrease in queen fertility by regularly removing brood. This triggered ovarian development and egg-laying by many workers, which strongly suggests that brood abundance is a reliable cue of queen quality. Brood abundance can be monitored when workers perform regular brood care in small size societies where each brood element is kept in a separate cell. Our results also show that although the queen was not manipulated, and thus remained healthy and fully fertile, she did not control worker egg-laying. Nevertheless, when workers laid eggs, the queen secured a near reproductive monopoly by selectively destroying these eggs, a mechanism known as ‘queen policing’. By contrast, workers destroyed comparatively few queen-laid eggs, but did destroy each other's eggs.

Cuticular hydrocarbons and reproductive status in the social wasp Polistes dominulus

2001 ◽  
Vol 49 (5) ◽  
pp. 401-409 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew F. Sledge ◽  
Francesca Boscaro ◽  
Stefano Turillazzi
Keyword(s):  
Cuticular Hydrocarbons ◽  
Social Wasp ◽  
Reproductive Status ◽  
Polistes Dominulus ◽  
The Social

scholarly journals The plasticity of lifespan in social insects

2021 ◽  
Vol 376 (1823) ◽  
pp. 20190734
Author(s):  
Jürgen Heinze ◽  
Julia Giehr
Keyword(s):  
Social Environment ◽  
Social Insects ◽  
Inclusive Fitness ◽  
Nutrient Sensing ◽  
Egg Laying ◽  
Social Traits ◽  
Short Lifespan ◽  
The Social ◽  
Underlying Mechanisms ◽  
Convenient Model

One of the central questions of ageing research is why lifespans of organisms differ so tremendously among related taxa and, even more surprising, among members of the same species. Social insects provide a particularly pronounced example for this. Here, we review previously published information on lifespan plasticity in social insects and provide new data on worker lifespan in the ant Cardiocondyla obscurior , which because of its relatively short lifespan is a convenient model to study ageing. We show that individual lifespan may vary within species with several reproductive and social traits, such as egg-laying rate, queen number, task, colony size and colony composition. For example, in Cardiocondyla , highly fecund queens live longer than reproductively less active queens, and workers tend to live longer when transferred into a novel social environment or, as we show with new data, into small colonies. We hypothesize that this plasticity of lifespan serves to maximize the reproductive output of the colony as a whole and thus the inclusive fitness of all individuals. The underlying mechanisms that link the social environment or reproductive status with lifespan are currently unresolved. Several studies in honeybees and ants indicate an involvement of nutrient-sensing pathways, but the details appear to differ among species. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Ageing and sociality: why, when and how does sociality change ageing patterns?'

Relative inclusive fitness in the social wasp Polistes metricus

1977 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 353-360 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert A. Metcalf ◽  
Gregory S. Whitt
Keyword(s):  
Inclusive Fitness ◽  
Social Wasp ◽  
Polistes Metricus ◽  
The Social

The Social Contract

2020 ◽  
pp. 85-110
Author(s):  
Robert E. Page
Keyword(s):  
Social Contract ◽  
Inclusive Fitness ◽  
Reproductive Rights ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Organizational Structures ◽  
Public Works ◽  
Common Features ◽  
External Threats ◽  
Insect Societies ◽  
The Social

Animals that live together in a society, like social insects, have a tacit agreement, a social contract of sorts, that guarantees that their reproductive interests are protected in exchange for their social cooperation. This contract isn’t written on paper, nor is it expressed in explicit laws or national constitutions; but instead it is written into the DNA of populations with the ink and quill of inclusive fitness and natural selection. All social groups share common features of providing for the defense of social members from external threats, internal policing of cheating by those who don’t cooperate, and some kind of protection of reproductive rights, either direct or indirect. Social benefits of insect societies include organizational structures similar to those of human societies such as public works, public health, police, and border patrol. Without these features, they would fail as societies.

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