Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Facial patterns in a tropical social wasp correlate with colony membership

  • Short Communication
  • Published:
The Science of Nature Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Social insects excel in discriminating nestmates from intruders, typically relying on colony odours. Remarkably, some wasp species achieve such discrimination using visual information. However, while it is universally accepted that odours mediate a group level recognition, the ability to recognise colony members visually has been considered possible only via individual recognition by which wasps discriminate ‘friends’ and ‘foes’. Using geometric morphometric analysis, which is a technique based on a rigorous statistical theory of shape allowing quantitative multivariate analyses on structure shapes, we first quantified facial marking variation of Liostenogaster flavolineata wasps. We then compared this facial variation with that of chemical profiles (generated by cuticular hydrocarbons) within and between colonies. Principal component analysis and discriminant analysis applied to sets of variables containing pure shape information showed that despite appreciable intra-colony variation, the faces of females belonging to the same colony resemble one another more than those of outsiders. This colony-specific variation in facial patterns was on a par with that observed for odours. While the occurrence of face discrimination at the colony level remains to be tested by behavioural experiments, overall our results suggest that, in this species, wasp faces display adequate information that might be potentially perceived and used by wasps for colony level recognition.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3

References

  • Aubin T, Jouventin P (1998) Cocktail–party effect in king penguin colonies. Proc R Soc Lond Biol 265(1406):1665–1673

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Balcombe JP (1990) Vocal recognition of pups by mother Mexican free-tailed bats, Tadarida brasiliensis mexicana. Anim Behav 39(5):960–966

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Baracchi D, Dapporto L, Teseo S, Hashim R, Turillazzi S (2010) Medium molecular weight polar substances of the cuticle as tools in the study of the taxonomy, systematics and chemical ecology of tropical hover wasps (Hymenoptera: Stenogastrinae. J Zool Syst Evol Res 48(2):109–114

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Baracchi D, Dapporto L, Turillazzi S (2011) Relevance of wing morphology in distinguishing and classifying genera and species of Stenogastrinae wasps. Contrib Zool 80(3):191–199

    Google Scholar 

  • Baracchi D, Petrocelli I, Cusseau G, Pizzocaro L, Teseo S, Turillazzi S (2013) Facial markings in the hover wasps: quality signals and familiar recognition cues in two species of Stenogastrinae. Anim Behav 85(1):203–212

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Baracchi D, Petrocelli I, Chittka L, Ricciardi G, Turillazzi S (2015) Speed and accuracy in nest-mate recognition: a hover wasp prioritizes face recognition over colony odour cues to minimize intrusion by outsiders. Proc R Soc Lond Biol 282(1802):20142750

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Barrows EM (1975) Individually distinctive odors in an invertebrate. Behav Biol 15(1):57–64

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Beani L, Turillazzi S (1999) Stripes display in hover-wasps (Vespidae: Stenogastrinae): a socially costly status badge. Anim Behav 57(6):1233–1239

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Bonadonna F, Nevitt GA (2004) Partner-specific odor recognition in an Antarctic seabird. Science 306(5697):835–835

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Bookstein FL (1989) Principal warps: thin-plate splines and the decomposition of deformations. IEEE Trans Pattern Anal Mach Intell 11(6):567–585

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bos N, d’Ettorre P (2012) Recognition of social identity in ants. Front Psychol 3:83

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Bridge C, Field J (2007) Queuing for dominance: gerontocracy and queue-jumping in the hover wasp Liostenogaster flavolineata. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 61(8):1253–1259

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bridge CAL (2005) Rank and inheritance in a facultatively eusocial hover wasp. University of London

  • Cervo R, Dani FR, Zanetti P, Massolo A, Turillazzi S (2002) Chemical nestmate recognition in a stenogastrine wasp, Liostenogaster flavolineata (Hymenoptera Vespidae. Ethol Ecol Evol 14(13):351–363

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cervo R, Cini A, Turillazzi S (2015) Visual recognition in social wasps. Social Recognition in Invertebrates, Springer: 125–145

  • Charrier I, Mathevon N, Jouventin P (2003) Vocal signature recognition of mothers by fur seal pups. Anim Behav 65(3):543–550

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chittka L, Schorn J, de Souza J, Ventura D, Camargo J (1997) The nest entrance signal of the Amazonian bees Partamona pearsoni—a case where insects design their own flight targets. Proc Int Colloquia Soc. Insects 3:4

    Google Scholar 

  • Coster-Longman C, Landi M, Turillazzi S (2002) The role of passive defense (selfish herd and dilution effect) in the gregarious nesting of Liostenogaster wasps (Vespidae, Hymenoptera, Stenogastrinae. J Insect Behav 15(3):331–350

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • d’Ettorre P, Heinze J (2005) Individual recognition in ant queens. Curr Biol 15(23):2170–2174

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Dryden IL, Mardia KV (1998) Statistical shape analysis. J. Wiley Chichester

  • Gherardi F, Tiedemann J (2004) Binary individual recognition in hermit crabs. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 55(6):524–530

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Godard R (1991) Long-term memory of individual neighbours in a migratory songbird. Nature:228–229

  • Gower JC (1975) Generalized procrustes analysis. Psychometrika 40(1):33–51

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Halpin Z (1980) Individual odors and individual recognition—review and commentary. Biol Behav 5(3):233–248

    Google Scholar 

  • Höjesjö J, Johnsson JI, Petersson E, Järvi T (1998) The importance of being familiar: individual recognition and social behavior in sea trout (Salmo trutta. Behav Ecol 9(5):445–451

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Insley SJ (2000) Long-term vocal recognition in the northern fur seal. Nature 406(6794):404–404

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Karavanich C, Atema J (1998) Individual recognition and memory in lobster dominance. Anim Behav 56(6):1553–1560

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Petrocelli I, Ricciardi G, Rodrigues de Souza A, Ermanni A, Ninu A, Turillazzi S (2015) Visual signals of individual quality in a european solitary founding paper wasp. Ethology 121(3):300–307

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rohlf FJ (2015) The tps series of software. Hystrix, the Italian Journal of Mammalogy 26(1):9–12

    Google Scholar 

  • Rohlf FJ, Slice D (1990) Extensions of the procrustes method for the optimal superimposition of landmarks. Syst Biol 39(1):40–59

    Google Scholar 

  • Samuel CT (1987) Factors affecting colony size in the stenogastrine wasp Liostenogaster Flavolineata. Ph.D. thesis, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur

  • Silk JB (1999) Male bonnet macaques use information about third-party rank relationships to recruit allies. Anim Behav 58(1):45–51

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Strassmann JE, Hughes CR, Turillazzi S, Solı́ CR, Queller DC (1994) Genetic relatedness and incipient eusociality in stenogastrine wasps. Anim Behav 48(4):813–821

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sumner S (1999) Conflicts over reproduction in facultatively eusocial hover wasps, University College London (University of London)

  • Sumner S, Casiraghi M, Foster W, Field J (2002) High reproductive skew in tropical hover wasps. Proc R Soc Lond Biol 269(1487):179–186

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tibbetts EA (2002) Visual signals of individual identity in the wasp Polistes fuscatus. Proc R Soc Lond Biol 269(1499):1423–1428

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tibbetts EA (2010) The condition dependence and heritability of signaling and nonsignaling color traits in paper wasps. Am Nat 175(5):495–503

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Tibbetts EA, Dale J (2004) A socially enforced signal of quality in a paper wasp. Nature 432(7014):218–222

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Tibbetts EA, Dale J (2007) Individual recognition: it is good to be different. Trend Ecol Evol 22(10):529–537

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tibbetts EA, Sheehan MJ (2011) Facial patterns are a conventional signal of agonistic ability in Polistes exclamans paper wasps. Ethology 117(12):1138–1146

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • van Zweden JS, d’Ettorre P (2010) Nestmate recognition in social insects and the role of hydrocarbons. Insect hydrocarbons: biology, biochemistry and chemical ecology 11:222–243

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Prof. Rosly Hashim and Dr. Iacopo Petrocelli for their support in Malaysia and Drs. Francesca Romana Dani and Alessandro Massolo for providing chemical data. DB was supported by a Marie Curie Intra European Fellowship. LC is supported by an ERC Advanced Grant and a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Université Paris 13, Sorbonne Paris Cité, Laboratoire d’Ethologie Expérimentale et Comparée, 93430, Villetaneuse, France

    David Baracchi

  2. Biological and Experimental Psychology, School of Biological and Chemical Sciences, Queen Mary University of London, Mile End Road, London, E1 4NS, UK

    David Baracchi & Lars Chittka

  3. Università degli Studi di Firenze, Dipartimento di Biologia, Via Madonna del Piano 6, Sesto Fiorentino, Italy

    Stefano Turillazzi

Authors
  1. David Baracchi
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Stefano Turillazzi
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Lars Chittka
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to David Baracchi.

Additional information

Communicated by Sven Thatje

Electronic supplementary material

Fig. ESM 1

(DOCX 57 kb)

Fig. ESM 2

(DOCX 71 kb)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Baracchi, D., Turillazzi, S. & Chittka, L. Facial patterns in a tropical social wasp correlate with colony membership. Sci Nat 103, 80 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00114-016-1406-8

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Revised:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00114-016-1406-8

Keywords

Search

Navigation