Nestmate and nest discrimination among workers from neighboring colonies of social wasps Polistes exclamans

Abstract

I examined nestmate and nest recognition among worker paper wasps Polistes exclamans on neighboring colonies in a dense nesting aggregation. In the laboratory, there was a significant positive correlation between the difference in preference toward nestmates and non-nestmates and internest distance (i.e., distance in the field between the nestmates' and non-nestmates' nests). This is the first demonstration of a distance effect in nestmate recognition ability among Polistes. The field significance of the laboratory bioassay of nestmate preference was confirmed by releasing in the field workers whose nests had been removed (i.e., orphaned workers) and finding that they joined colonies near the site of their original nest. Orphaned workers also tended to join smaller colonies, perhaps because these workers had a greater opportunity for reproduction on smaller colonies. This pattern may also reflect a greater tendency on the part of inhabitants of smaller nests to admit joiners, because the addition of a worker may have had a greater impact on colony success on a smaller colony than on a larger nest. Finally, workers prefer fragments of nests located closer in the field to the workers' colony than fragments of more distant nests. This ability may aid workers in choosing which nests to join and which to rob.