Helping effort in primitively eusocial wasps

Direct fitness, reciprocity and helping: a perspective from primitively eusocial wasps.

In their review, Bergmüller et al. (2007) examine explanaions for helping based on direct fitness benefits, and suggest arallels with general cooperation theory. Bergmüller et al. 2007) focus on cooperatively breeding vertebrates. Primiively eusocial wasps, in which all individuals have the option f independent reproduction, comprise the vespid subfamilies olistinae (paper wasps) and Stenogastr...

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

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

A key step in the evolution of sociality is the abandonment of independent breeding in favour of helping. In cooperatively breeding vertebrates and primitively eusocial insects, helpers are capable of leaving the group and reproducing independently, and yet many do not. A fundamental question therefore is why do helpers help? Helping behaviour may be explained by constraints on independent repr...

Ovarian development in a primitively eusocial wasp: social interactions affect behaviorally dominant and subordinate wasps in opposite directions relative to solitary females.

In many primitively eusocial wasp species new nests are founded either by a single female or by a small group of females. In the single foundress nests, the lone female develops her ovaries, lays eggs as well as tends her brood. In multiple foundress nests social interactions, especially dominance-subordinate interactions, result in only one 'dominant' female developing her ovaries and laying e...

Juvenile hormone accelerates ovarian development and does not affect age polyethism in the primitively eusocial wasp, Ropalidia marginata.

Juvenile hormone modulates post-imaginal reproductive division of labor in primitively eusocial species and promotes the production of queens (e.g., Polistes) while it modulates age polyethism and promotes the production of foragers in highly eusocial species (e.g., the honey bee). Ropalidia marginata is a primitively eusocial wasp that shows both post-imaginal regulation of reproductive divisi...