Mating Success in the Polyandrous Social Wasp Vespula maculifrons

The females of many species mate with multiple males (polyandry; Birkhead & Møller 1998; Arnqvist & Nilsson 2000; Eberhard 2000; Jennions & Petrie 2000). However, polyandry is relatively rare among social hymenopteran insects (ants, some bees, and wasps; Strassmann 2001; Brown & Schmid-Hempel 2003; Kronauer et al. 2004). Nevertheless, polyandry has profound and far-reaching consequences on social insect ecology and evolution because of the effects that multiple mating ultimately has on colony structure and diversity (Crozier & Fjerdingstad 2001; Strassmann 2001). Social insect females may choose particular males as mates based on the direct or indirect benefits that the males provide. For example, females may mate with males providing substantial direct benefits, such as large nuptial gifts. However, social insect males apparently do not provide these types of direct benefits (Fjerdingstad & Keller 2004). Thus, it is posited that females in polyandrous social insect taxa mate multiply to obtain indirect benefits such as greater genetic variability among offspring, which may be Correspondence Michael Goodisman, School of Biology, Georgia Institute of Technology, 310 Ferst Drive, Atlanta, GA 30332, USA. E-mail: [email protected]