Individual variation in queen morphology and behavior predicts colony performance in the wild

Wright, Colin M.; Lichtenstein, James L. L.; Tibbetts, Elizabeth A.; Pruitt, Jonathan N.

doi:10.1007/s00265-019-2739-z

Cited by 4 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…Neither body size nor boldness appear to contribute significantly to colony life-history or performance in this population of P. metricus . Prior studies on P. metricus collected from this same field site found that bolder queens and larger queens were more productive than their small and shy counterparts (Wright et al., in revision). This raises the question of why, then, did we not detect such effects in this study.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 84%

Foundress Number, But Not Queen Size or Boldness, Predicts Colony Life-History in Wild Paper Wasps

Wright

Fisher

Nerone

et al. 2019

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3Colonies of social insects exhibit a spectacular variety of life histories. Here we documented the 1 4 degree of variation in colony life-history traits, mostly related to productivity, in two species of 1 5 wild paper wasps. We then tested for associations between colony life-history traits to look for 1 6 trade-offs or positively associated syndromes, and examined whether individual differences in 1 7 the behavioral tendencies of foundresses (Polistes metricus) or the number of cofoundresses (P. 1 8 fuscatus) influenced colony life-history. The majority of our measures of colony life-history 1 9 were positively related, indicating no obvious resource allocation trade-offs. Instead, the positive 2 0association of traits into a productivity syndrome appears to be driven by differences in queen or 2 1 microhabitat quality. Syndrome structure differed only marginally between species. Queen 2 2 boldness and body size were not associated with colony life-history in P. metricus. Colonies 2 3 initiated by multiple P. fuscatus foundresses were generally more productive, and this advantage 2 4was approximately proportional to the number of cofoundresses. These findings demonstrate that 2 5 colony life-history traits can be associated together much like individual life-history traits, and 2 6 the associations seen here convey that differences in overall productivity drive between-colony 2 7 differences in life-history. 2 8

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 84%