Dispersal behavior of yellowjacket (Vespula germanica) queens

Abstract

Understanding the factors that affect animal dispersal behavior is important from both fundamental and applied perspectives. Dispersal can have clear evolutionary and ecological consequences, but for nonnative insect pests, dispersal capacity can also help to explain invasion success. Vespula germanica is a social wasp that, in the last century, has successfully invaded several regions of the world, showing one of the highest spread rates reported for a nonnative insect. In contrast with nonsocial wasps, in social species, queens are responsible for population redistribution and spread, as workers are sterile. For V. germanica, it has been observed that queen flight is limited to 2 distinct periods: early autumn, when new queens leave the nest to mate and find sheltered places in which to hibernate, and spring when new colonies are founded. Our aim was to study the flight behavior of V. germanica queens by focusing on the different periods in which dispersal occurs, characterizing as well the potential contribution of queen flight (i.e., distance) to the observed geographical spread. Our results suggest that the distances flown by nonoverwintered queens is greater than that flown by overwintered individuals, suggesting that the main queen dispersal events would occur before queens enter hibernation. This could relate to a behavioral trait of the queens to avoid the inbreeding with related drones. Additionally, given the short distances flown and remarkable geographical spread observed, we provide evidence showing that queen dispersal by flight is likely to contribute proportionately less to population spread than human-aided factors.

Mate‐searching behavior in the invasive German wasp, Vespula germanica, in Patagonia

“…Data on gynes were obtained from Masciocchi et al. (). Flight distance data were fitted to the exponential function: probability = scale (growth rate × flight distance) .…”

“…Although there is no established link between tethered flight mill patterns and movement in the field, our results suggest that dispersal in V. germanica could be gyne‐biased, with a higher proportion of drones remaining in the vicinity of the parental nest (66% of drones fly less than 500 m), whereas gynes have the capacity of flying larger distances (60% of gynes fly more than 2 500 m), but still a proportion of the gynes fly as little as drones. Although tethered flight assays are a simplification of what occurs in natural environments, it is an accepted method to compare movement potential of flying animals (Brodschneider et al., ; Bruzzone et al., ; Tosi et al., ; Masciocchi et al., ), especially useful in species where quantifying flight patterns in the field is difficult. It is also important to note that our tethered flight‐mill studies are limited in the sense that flight potential was measured in the absence of potentially relevant information during the process of mate location, such as visual and olfactory cues, and abiotic factors such as natural light and wind.…”

“…Tethered flight experiments were carried out in flight mills following the method detailed in Masciocchi et al. (). Drones were tethered to mills and left to fly for 24 h. The total flight distance was recorded for 78 drones and compared with previously published tethered flight distances of 41 unmated pre‐hibernated queens (Masciocchi et al., ).…”

Drone aggregation behavior in the social wasp Vespula germanica (Hymenoptera: Vespidae): Effect of kinship and density

“…With gynes not having a selective behavior toward potential mates, a mechanism to increase outbreeding, regulated by drones, would make sense. It has been recently suggested that dispersal in V. germanica is gyne-biased, while gynes have the potential of flying relatively large distances, drones fly relatively little, which implies remaining in the vicinity of the parental nest, where kin density is high 8,39 . This would suggest that, if no additional mechanism for increasing aggregation heterogeneity was in place, the risk of drone aggregations being conformed by a relatively high proportion of nestmates, would be high.…”

Flight Distance and Return Capacity of Polistes lanio lanio (Hymenoptera: Vespidae) Workers

“…Foraging is the most complex behavior of social wasps (Richter 2000) with a behavioral sequence of travel, searching, preying, loading, return, and discharging the load in the nest (Brügger et al 2019a). However, we believe that flight capacity of social wasps should be studied to define their foraging area (Mandal et al 2017;Masciocchi et al 2018) and to determine the predatory potential of these insects (Dejean 2017). Here we report on investigations of the flight area and return capacity of P. lanio lanio workers in Seropédica, Rio de Janeiro State, Brazil.…”