Abstract
Since the beginning of the last century, the number of biological invasions has continuously increased worldwide. Due to their environmental and economical consequences, invasive species are now a major concern. Social wasps are particularly efficient invaders because of their distinctive biology and behavior. Among them, the yellow-legged hornet, Vespa velutina, is a keen hunter of domestic honeybees. Its recent introduction to Europe may induce important beekeeping, pollination, and biodiversity problems. Hornets use olfactory cues for the long-range detection of food sources, in this case the location of honeybee colonies, but the exact nature of these cues remains unknown. Here, we studied the orientation behavior of V. velutina workers towards a range of hive products and protein sources, as well as towards prominent chemical substances emitted by these food sources. In a multiple choice test performed under controlled laboratory conditions, we found that hornets are strongly attracted to the odor of some hive products, especially pollen and honey. When testing specific compounds, the honeybee aggregation pheromone, geraniol, proved highly attractive. Pheromones produced by honeybee larvae or by the queen were also of interest to hornet workers, albeit to a lesser extent. Our results indicate that V. velutina workers are selectively attracted towards olfactory cues from hives (stored food, brood, and queen), which may signal a high prey density. This study opens new perspectives for understanding hornets’ hunting behavior and paves the way for developing efficient trapping strategies against this invasive species.
Highlights
Since the beginning of the 20th century, as a result of globalization and the development of international exchanges, biological invasions have critically increased [1,2,3,4]
The behavior of 400 hornets was observed in two experiments aiming to test their olfactory attraction towards food sources (Experiment 1) or individual odorants (Experiment 2)
V. velutina workers were presented with several food sources and different elements of a honeybee colony
Summary
Since the beginning of the 20th century, as a result of globalization and the development of international exchanges, biological invasions have critically increased [1,2,3,4]. They live in populous colonies organized according to highly efficient task allocation systems, which confers them outstanding abilities for exploiting local food resources and outcompeting local species [8]. Social wasps gather food resources from the surroundings of the nest, mostly gathering carbohydrates and proteins [9]. These generalist hunters typically find protein resources by preying on numerous insect species including many pollinators. Because of the current decline of pollinator populations [10,11] and of the severe ecological consequences of the introduction of such generalist hunters in new ecosystems [12], acquiring a better knowledge of the predation behavior of social wasps has become a crucial endeavor
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