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Yellowjackets (Vespula pensylvanica) thermoregulate in response to changes in protein concentration

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Abstract

Social insects can modulate body temperature to increase foraging efficiency; however, little is known about how the relative value of protein resources affects forager body temperature. Such regulation may be important given that colony growth is often limited by protein availability. In this paper, we present what are, to our knowledge, the first data for social insects showing that thoracic temperatures (T th) of foragers increase with the protein content of food resources. In an introduced population of western yellowjacket (Vespula pensylvanica), we measured T th of foragers collecting high-quality protein (100% canned chicken) and low-quality protein (50% canned chicken, 50% indigestible alpha-cellulose by volume) at different ambient air temperatures (T a). Wasps foraging on 100% chicken consistently exhibited higher T th compared to wasps foraging on 50% chicken. After correcting for T a, the mean T th for wasps collecting 100% chicken were 1.98°C higher than those of individuals collecting 50% chicken. We suggest that this mechanism may increase foraging efficiency in this and other social wasp species.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Cause Hanna and David Foote (USGS-HAVO) for their help with yellowjacket nest location. We are grateful for the assistance of Shannon Wilson and John Wilson in pilot studies. Data were collected under permit HAVO-2005-SCI-0044. The comments of anonymous reviewers substantially improved the manuscript. EEW was supported in part by the Jeanne Marie Messier Memorial Fund and a NSF DDIG (NSF DEB-0608397).

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  1. Division of Biological Sciences, Section of Ecology, Behavior, and Evolution, University of California, San Diego, Mail Code 0116, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA, 92093-0116, USA

    M. A. Eckles, E. E. Wilson, D. A. Holway & J. C. Nieh

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  1. M. A. Eckles
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  2. E. E. Wilson
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  3. D. A. Holway
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  4. J. C. Nieh
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Correspondence to M. A. Eckles.

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Eckles, M.A., Wilson, E.E., Holway, D.A. et al. Yellowjackets (Vespula pensylvanica) thermoregulate in response to changes in protein concentration. Naturwissenschaften 95, 787–792 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00114-008-0384-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00114-008-0384-x

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