Bivoltinism as an antecedent to eusociality in the paper wasp genus Polistes.

Sociogenomics of social organization: mechanistic and evolutionary underpinnings of caste development and facial recognition in paper wasps

Sociogenomics is an emerging field that employs genomics to address the evolution and underlying mechanisms regulating social living. Studies on highly social (often called eusocial) insects have contributed to advances in sociogenomics. Eusocial insects exhibit extreme cooperation characterized by a division of labor with reproductive queen and non-reproductive worker castes. Eusociality has e...

Polistes canadensis wasp , benefits explain helping behaviour in the primitively eusocial Reproductive constraints , direct fitness and indirect fitness

Long live the wasp: adult longevity in captive colonies of the eusocial paper wasp Polistes canadensis (L.)

Insects have been used as an exemplary model in studying longevity, from extrinsic mortality pressures to intrinsic senescence. In the highly eusocial insects, great degrees of variation in lifespan exist between morphological castes in relation to extreme divisions of labour, but of particular interest are the primitively eusocial insects. These species represent the ancestral beginnings of eu...

Phylogeny and historical biogeography of the paper wasp genus Polistes (Hymenoptera: Vespidae): implications for the overwintering hypothesis of social evolution

The phylogeny of the paper wasp genus Polistes is investigated using morphological and behavioural characters, as well as molecular data from six genes (COI, 12S, 16S, 28S, H3, and EF1-a). The results are used to investigate the following evolutionary hypotheses about the genus: (i) that Polistes first evolved in Southeast Asia, (ii) that dispersal to the New World occurred only once, and (iii)...

Grooming Patterns in the Primitively Eusocial Wasp Polistes dominulus

Grooming is a commonly observed behavior in many animals. One function of grooming is to clean the body of debris and parasites. An additional function may be to homogenize chemical cues present on the body. This latter purpose is especially likely in species in which contact-based chemical communication occurs, such as in eusocial insects. In this study we address the context, sequence, freque...