1,721,045 research outputs found
Behavioural-responce threshold to conspecific cuticular lipids and chemical insignificance hypothesis in Polistes social parasites.
No full textLl’indice ovarico come indicatore di fertilità e ovodeposizione nella vespa sociale Polistes dominulus.
No full textInferring reproductive activity through the ovarian development assessment:comparison of different methods.
No full textIncreased fertility and prompt fecudity in paper wasp workers usurped by a social parasite
No full textNessuna evidenza di adattamento locale nella vespa parassita sociale Polistes sulcifer e nel suo ospite.
No full textInquiline social parasites as tools to unlock the secrets of insect sociality
No full textInsect societies play a crucial role in the functioning of most ecosystems and have fascinated both scientists and the lay public for centuries. Despite the long history of study, we are still far from understanding how insect societies have evolved and how social cohesion in their colonies is maintained. Here we suggest inquiline social parasites of insect societies as an under-exploited experimental tool for understanding sociality. We draw on examples from obligate inquiline (permanent) social parasites in wasps, ants and bees to illustrate how these parasites may allow us to better understand societies and learn more about the evolution and functioning of insect societies. We highlight three main features of these social parasite–host systems—namely, close phylogenetic relationships, strong selective pressures arising from coevolution and multiple independent origins—that make inquiline social parasites particularly suited for this aim; we propose a conceptual comparative framework that considers trait losses, gains and modifications in social parasite–host systems. We give examples of how this framework can reveal the more elusive secrets of sociality by focusing on two cornerstones of sociality: communication and reproductive division of labour. Together with social parasites in other taxonomic groups, such as cuckoos in birds, social parasitism has a great potential to reveal the mechanisms and evolution of complex social groups
Behavioural and neurogenomic responses of host workers to social parasite invasion in a social insect
No full textThe strong coevolutionary arms race between social parasites and their hosts has dramatically shaped the life-history traits of both parties. One of the main strategies exhibited by hosts in response to parasitism is reproduction by host workers. We lack a mechanistic understanding of how these defence strategies unfold and, specifically, whether hosts exhibit more subtle strategies to reduce the costs of parasitism from the outset. Here we test the hypothesis that there are both behavioural and neurogenomic signatures of worker responses to parasitism, prior to overt expression in the form of egg-laying; we test this using the social parasite—social host system of the paper wasps Polistes sulcifer-Polistes dominula. We characterized individual workers’ position within the social interaction network of queenright and host colonies immediately after parasite usurpation, weeks before the workers’ reproductive rebellion is evident. Parasitism influenced network centrality measures, with workers in parasitized colonies showing increased connectedness and centrality compared to those in unparasitized ones. Next, we quantified brain gene expression levels for five genes related to physiological and behavioural phenotypes in Polistes wasps. The gene Imaginal disc growth factor (Idgf4), thought to be responsive to changes in the social environment, was significantly down-regulated in workers from parasitized colonies; this may be an indication that parasitized workers are anticipating a shift toward a less worker-like phenotype in preparation for their reproductive rebellion. Our results provide the first evidence of early behavioural and neurogenomic responses of host workers toward the presence of an inquiline social parasite in a social insect
Adult-larva vibrational communication: playback experiments in the paper wasp Polistes dominula
No full text
Comportamento sociale e riproduttivo del punteruolo rosso delle palme: approfondire le conoscenze per contrastare questo flagello
No full textComportamento sociale e riproduttivo del punteruolo rosso delle palme: approfondire le conoscenze per contrastare questo flagello
- …
