The Evolution and Ontogeny of Nestmate Recognition in Social Wasps

Abstract

During the past decade, a substantial and rapidly expanding literature has documented that a diversity of hymenopterans have the ability to recognize their conspecific nestmates (22). As recognition research enters its second generation, investigators are turning their attention to elucidating the mechanisms of nestmate recognition and how the features of these mechanisms, as well as recognition ability itself, relate to an animal’s sociobiology. Such studies are important not only because of their relevance to an understanding of the evolution and ecology of hymenopteran sociality, but also because of their potential application for control of economically important social insects. In our review, we summarize the evidence for nestmate recognition ability in social wasps, and examine in detail the mechanism of female-female nestmate recognition using primitively eusocial wasps (Polistes) as a model. We also compare the Polistes mechanism with mechanisms proposed for other social Hymenoptera nd ,with the major theoretical models of kin recognition developed for animals in general. This is followed by a discussion of the possible adaptiveness of both female-female nestmate recognition ability and the specific mechanisms underlying this ability. Finally, we explore the preadaptations