Abstract
In this, and the next few articles, we will continue to explore the social biology of the primitively eusocial wasp Ropalidia marginata through simple experiments. Since each wasp colon has a single fertile queen and several sterile workers, and since all or most wasps are capable of taking on both roles, the wasps have to decide who will be the queen and who will be the worker/s. Such a decision has to be made both when new colonies are being initiated as well as when an old queen in a mature colony has to be replaced by a new one. Here, I will describe a simple laboratory experiment that reveals that in the context of new nest initiation, wasps decide who will be the queen by fighting—the winner becomes the queen and the loser/s become the worker/s. The same experiment, in addition to revealing the proximate mechanism of the division of reproductive and non-reproductive labour, also throws light on the advantages of such division of labour.
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R Gadagkar, How to design experiments in animal behaviour-6, Why are male wasps lazy? Resonance -journal of science education, Vol.24, No.9, pp.995–1014, 2019.
R Gadagkar, The Social Biology of Ropalidia marginata: Toward Understanding the Evolution of Eusociality, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, 2001.
R Gadagkar, Survival Strategies: Cooperation and Conflict in Animal Societies, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA and Universities Press, Hyderabad, India, 1997.
R Gadagkar, C Vinutha, A Shanubhogue and A P Gore. Pre-imaginal biasing of caste in a primitively eusocial insect, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B, 233, pp.175–189, 1988.
A Brahma, S Mandal and R Gadagkar, Emergence of cooperation and division of labor in the primitively eusocial wasp Ropalidia marginata, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci., USA, 115, pp.756–761, 2018.
R Gadagkar, How to design experiments in animal behaviour-1, How wasps find their nests, Resonance - journal of science education, Vol.23, No.08, pp.871–884, 2018.
A Brahma, S Mandal and R Gadagkar, To leave or to stay: direct fitness through natural nest foundation in a primitively eusocial wasp, Insectes So-ciaux, 66, pp.335–342, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00040-019-00702-2.
Acknowledgments
I thank Anindita Brahma and Souvik Mandal for helpful comments on a draft of this article.
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Raghavendra Gadagkar is DST Year of Science Chair Professor at the Centre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, Honorary Professor at JNCASR, and Non-Resident Permanent Fellow of the Wissenschaftskolleg (Institute for Advanced Study), Berlin. During the past 40 years he has established an active school of research in the area of animal behaviour, ecology and evolution. The origin and evolution of cooperation in animals, especially in social insects, such as ants, bees and wasps, is a major goal of his research. http://ces.iisc.ac.in/hpg/ragh. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Raghavendra_Gadagkar
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Gadagkar, R. How to Design Experiments in Animal Behaviour. Reson 24, 1087–1107 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12045-019-0878-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12045-019-0878-1