WASPnest: a worldwide assessment of social Polistine nesting behavior

Abstract

Cooperative breeding decreases the direct reproductive output of subordinate individuals, but cooperation can be evolutionarily favored when there are challenges or constraints to breeding independently. Environmental factors, including temperature, precipitation, latitude, high seasonality, and environmental harshness have been hypothesized to correlate with the presence of cooperative breeding. However, to test the relationship between cooperation and ecological constraints requires comparative data on the frequency and variation of cooperative breeding across differing environments, ideally replicated across multiple species. Paper wasps are primitively social species, forming colonies composed of reproductively active dominants and foraging subordinates. Adult female wasps, referred to as foundresses, initiate new colonies. Nests can be formed by a single solitary foundress (noncooperative) or by multiple foundress associations (cooperative). Cooperative behavior varies within and among species, making paper wasps species well suited to disentangling ecological correlates of variation in cooperative behavior. This data set reports the frequency and extent of cooperative nest founding for 87 paper wasp species. Data were assembled from more than 170 published sources, previously unpublished field observations, and photographs contributed by citizen scientists to online natural history repositories. The data set includes 25,872 nest observations and reports the cooperative behavioral decisions for 45,297 foundresses. Species names were updated to reflect modern taxonomic revisions. The type of substrate on which the nest was built is also included, when available. A smaller population-level version of this data set found that the presence or absence of cooperative nesting in paper wasps was correlated with temperature stability and environmental harshness, but these variables did not predict the extent of cooperation within species. This expanded data set contains details about individual nests and further increases the power to address the relationship between the environment and the presence and extent of cooperative breeding. Beyond the ecological drivers of cooperation, these high-resolution data will be useful for future studies examining the evolutionary consequences of variation in social behavior. This data set may be used for research or educational purposes provided that this data paper is cited.

High indirect fitness benefits for helpers across the nesting cycle in the tropical paper waspPolistes canadensis

“…The lack of a seasonal diapause may provide tropical species with a mechanism by which to improve the chances of cofounding a new nest with relatives. New foundress nests in P. canadensis are often formed by groups of females (see data in Miller et al, 2018) who abandoned mature postemergence nest combs (R.J. Southon; E.F. Bell; S. Sumner, personal observation; Pickering, 1980), making family groups (if not the nest structure itself) perennial rather than annual; we provide supporting genetic data for this, as nests usually consist of a mother with her daughters or a group of sisters. In the absence of an overwintering diapause period, opportunities to nest with relatives may be more prevalent for tropical species than for temperate social wasps, as the time lag between leaving the natal nest and founding a new nest is likely short in tropical species (e.g., if within-nest gyne dispersal is synchronous or nestmates are recruited nearby).…”

“…Here, we examine genetic structure and reproductive partitioning in societies of the tropical paper wasp Polistes canadensis, an emerging model species for Polistes research (Ferreira et al, 2013;Jeanne, 1979;Patalano et al, 2015;Pickering, 1980;Sumner, Kelstrup, & Fanelli, 2010;Sumner, Lucas, Barker, & Isaac, 2007;Sumner, Pereboom, & Jordan, 2006;West-Eberhard, 1986). New nests are cofounded by several females (Miller et al, 2018;Pickering, 1980), yet it is unknown whether these females are often of low relatedness or unrelated, as in temperate species (Appendix S1). The República de Panamá, in the central range for P. canadensis, experiences seasonal variation in the form of wet and dry periods, but there is no enforced overwintering diapause period.…”

Collective aggressiveness limits colony persistence in high‐ but not low‐elevation sites at Amazonian social spiders

“…At odds with previous work, group size was not a significant predictor of colony persistence in our field data on A. eximius . The formation of larger coalitions is frequently associated with reduced group failure rate in social arthropods, and this fact is thought to underlie the formation of social life history trajectories like foundress coalitions in wasps and ants (Fewell & Page, ; Miller et al., ; Seppa, Queller, & Strassmann, ; Tibbetts & Reeve, ). Group size‐dependent survival has also been documented in a number of social (Aviles & Tufino, ; Bilde et al., ) and transitionally social species of spiders (Lichtenstein, Bengston, Aviles, & Pruitt, ).…”

“…At odds with previous work, group size was not a significant predictor of colony persistence in our field data on A. eximius. The formation of larger coalitions is frequently associated with reduced group failure rate in social arthropods, and this fact is thought to underlie the formation of social life history trajectories like foundress coalitions in wasps and ants (Fewell & Page, 1999;Miller et al, 2018;Seppa, Queller, & Strassmann, 2002;Tibbetts & Reeve, 2003).…”

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

“…We then test for associations between these life-history traits to probe for possible resource allocation trade-offs that might be consistent with alternative life-history strategies, or for positive associations of traits into productivity syndromes. Finally, we examine whether between-group differences in queen behavior (boldness) and queen body size (head width) are associated with colony life-history patterns in the solitary-nesting Polistes metricus [mean foundress = 1 07, 95% CI: 1.06-1.08] (Miller, Bluher, Bell, Cini, da Silva, de Souza, Gandia, Jandt, Loope, Prato, Pruitt, Rankin, Rankin, Southon, Uy, Weiner, Wright, Downing, Gadagkar, Lorenzi, Rusina, Sumner, Tibbetts, Toth & Sheehan, 2018), and whether the number of foundresses influences colony life-history patterns in the facultatively cofounding P. fuscatus [mean foundress = 2.16, 95% CI: 1.922.40].…”