Juvenile hormone, reproduction, and worker behavior in the neotropical social wasp Polistes canadensis.

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...

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

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...

Radio-Tagging Technology Reveals Extreme Nest-Drifting Behavior in a Eusocial Insect

Kin-selection theory underlies our basic understanding of social evolution [1, 2]. Nest drifting in eusocial insects (where workers move between nests) presents a challenge to this paradigm, since a worker should remain as a helper on her natal colony, rather than visit other colonies to which she is less closely related. Here we reveal nest drifting as a strategy by which workers may maximize ...

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

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

To learn the evolutionary trajectories of caste differentiation in eusocial species is a major goal of sociobiology. We present an explanatory framework for caste evolution in the eusocial wasp genus Polistes (Vespidae), which is a model system for insect eusocial evolution. We hypothesize that Polistes worker and gyne castes stem from two developmental pathways that characterized the bivoltine...