Do Small Social Wasp Colonies Defend Against Large Intruders?

Authors

  • Christopher K. Starr Department of Life Sciences, University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, Trinidad & Tobago
  • Craig A. Western Interior Harmony Company Ltd, 13 Patna Street, St. James, Trinidad & Tobago
  • Aidan D. Farrell Department of Life Sciences, University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, Trinidad & Tobago

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.13102/sociobiology.v72i3.11602

Keywords:

colony defense, stinging, Polistes, threats

Abstract

      Against the hypothesis that the ability to defend the brood by stinging is a key enabling mechanism in the origin of sociality in the Hymenoptera, it was claimed that small colonies do not defend the nest against large adversaries. We report on a test of this claim. Using a simulated vertebrate intruder, we provoked early colonies of three species of paper wasps (Polistes) until all adult females had either attacked or fled. In each species, a substantial fraction of adult females attacked the intruder, with an approximately linear relationship between the total number of females and the number attacking, consistent with the initial hypothesis. This experimental approach also presents a novel method for comparing attack-readiness between species, developmental stages, or experimental conditions.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

References

Bruschini, C., Cervo, R., & Turillazzi, S. (2005). Defensive responses to visual and vibrational stimulations in colonies of the social wasp Polistes dominulus. Ethology, Ecology, and Evolution, 17: 319-326.

Ihering, R. von (1904). As vespas sociais do Brasil. Revista do Museu Paulista, 6: 97-309.

Judd, T.M. (1998). Defensive behavior of colonies of the paper wasp Polistes fuscatus against vertebrate predators over the colony cycle. Insectes Sociaux, 45: 197-208.

Judd, T.M. (2000). Division of labour in colony defense against vertebrate predators by the social wasp Polistes fuscatus. Animal Behaviour, 60: 55-61.

Kukuk, F., Alexander, B., Eickwort, G.C., Gibson, R., Morse, R.A., Ratnieks, F., & Raveret-Richter, M. (1989). The importance of the sting in the evolution of sociality in the Hymenoptera. Annals of the Entomological Society of America, 82: 1-5.

Nouvian, M., Reinhard, J. & Giurfa, M. (2016). The defensive response of the honeybee Apis mellifera. Journal of Experimental Biology, 219: 3505–3517.

Seal, J.N. (2002). Does Polistes instabilis de Saussure (Hymenoptera: Vespidae) investment predict nest defense? Journal of the Kansas Entomological Society, 75: 335-338.

Starr, C.K. (1985). Enabling mechanisms in the origin of sociality in the Hymenoptera -- the sting's the thing. Annals of the Entomological Society of America, 78: 836-840.

Starr, C.K. (1989). In reply, is the sting the thing? Annals of the Entomological Society of America, 82: 6-8.

Starr, C.K. (1990). Holding the fort: Colony defense in some primitively social wasps. In D.L. Evans & J.O. Schmidt (Eds.), Insect defenses. Albany, State University of New York Press (pp 421-463).

Western, C.A. & Starr, C.K. (2019). Array and sequence of visual threats in three neotropical social wasps (Hymenoptera: Vespidae: Polistes spp.). Journal of Entomological Science, 54: 288-292.

Downloads

Published

2025-07-11

How to Cite

Starr, C. K., Western, C. A., & Farrell, A. D. (2025). Do Small Social Wasp Colonies Defend Against Large Intruders?. Sociobiology, 72(3), e11602. https://doi.org/10.13102/sociobiology.v72i3.11602

Issue

Vol. 72 No. 3 (2025)

Section

Short Note

License

Copyright (c) 2025 Christopher K. Starr, Craig A. Western, Aidan D. Farrell

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Sociobiology is a diamond open access journal which means that all content is freely available without charge to the user or his/her institution. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles in this journal without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author. This is in accordance with the BOAI definition of open access.

Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:

 

    1. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.

 

    1. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.

 

  1. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).