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Multiple reproductive strategies in a tropical hover wasp

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Abstract

Reproductive skew theory has been an important component of efforts to design a unifying theory of social evolution, as it aims to explain patterns of reproductive partitioning in animal societies as a function of relatedness, group productivity, fighting ability and ecological constraints on independent reproduction. However, empirical tests of the theory have often provided ambiguous or non-conclusive results, assumptions behind alternative models have rarely been tested, and theoretical elaborations have shown the limitations of the reproductive skew approach. Here we analyse a relatively large sample of colonies of the Stenogastrine wasp Parischnogaster mellyi with a powerful set of DNA microsatellite markers. We show that various apparently stable forms of social organisation co-exist in a single population, and that sharing of reproduction between related and unrelated egg-laying females occurs in some of the nests. Present reproductive skew theory appears to be at best partly sufficient to account for the observed complexity of social organisation. The observed patterns of colony composition and reproductive sharing are weakly consistent with the hypothesis of reproductive transactions, while they can more parsimoniously be explained by the life-history characteristics of the species.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Professor Rosli Hashim (University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia) for logistic support during the field work, Sylvia Mathiasen for helping with the genetic analyses, and an anonymous referee for suggestions that helped to improve the manuscript. The experiments reported comply with the current laws of the countries in which they were performed. Funding of this work was obtained through the research network INSECTS of the universities of Copenhagen, Florence, Keele, Lausanne, Oulu, Regensburg, Sheffield and ETH Zürich, financed by the European Commission via the Research Training Network established under the Improving Human Potential Programme (HPRN-CT-2000-00052); through the Italian MIUR (COFIN 2001 project “Comunicazione animale: studio integrato sulla comunicazione chimica negli Insetti Sociali”) and the University of Florence.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dipartimento di Biologia Animale e Genetica, Università di Firenze, via Romana 17, 50125 , Florence, Italy

    D. Fanelli & S. Turillazzi

  2. Department of Population Biology, Institute of Biology, University of Copenhagen, Universtitetsparken 15, 2100 , Copenhagen, Denmark

    J. J. Boomsma

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  1. D. Fanelli
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  2. J. J. Boomsma
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  3. S. Turillazzi
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Correspondence to D. Fanelli.

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Communicated by R.F.A. Moritz

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Fanelli, D., Boomsma, J.J. & Turillazzi, S. Multiple reproductive strategies in a tropical hover wasp. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 58, 190–199 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-005-0908-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-005-0908-8

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