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Colony social structure in native and invasive populations of the social wasp Vespula pensylvanica

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Abstract

Social insects rank among the most invasive of terrestrial species. The success of invasive social insects stems, in part, from the flexibility derived from their social behaviors. We used genetic markers to investigate if the social system of the invasive wasp, Vespula pensylvanica, differed in its introduced and native habitats in order to better understand variation in social phenotype in invasive social species. We found that (1) nestmate workers showed lower levels of relatedness in introduced populations than native populations, (2) introduced colonies contained workers produced by multiple queens whereas native colonies contained workers produced by only a single queen, (3) queen mate number did not differ significantly between introduced and native colonies, and (4) workers from introduced colonies were frequently produced by queens that originated from foreign nests. Thus, overall, native and introduced colonies differed substantially in social phenotype because introduced colonies more frequently contained workers produced by multiple, foreign queens. In addition, the similarity in levels of genetic variation in introduced and native habitats, as well as observed variation in colony social phenotype in native populations, suggest that colony structure in invasive populations may be partially associated with social plasticity. Overall, the differences in social structure observed in invasive V. pensylvanica parallel those in other, distantly related invasive social insects, suggesting that insect societies often develop similar social phenotypes upon introduction into new habitats.

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Acknowledgments

This work was partially supported by the U. S. National Science Foundation (Grant # DEB-0640690 (MG) and IOS-0821130 (MG), and graduate research fellowship DGE-1106400 (CH)), the US Geological Survey Invasive Species Program (DF), the Georgia Tech-Elizabeth Smithgall Watts Foundation (MG), and the Department of Education (GAANN fellowship to EC). The authors thank Mike Juhl for providing Vespula colonies from Washington. Any use of trade, product, or firm names in this publication is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the US Government.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Environmental Science, Policy and Management, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA

    Cause Hanna

  2. School of Biology, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, 30332, USA

    Erin D. Cook, Ariel R. Thompson, Lyndzey E. Dare, Amanda L. Palaski & Michael A. D. Goodisman

  3. U.S. Geological Survey, Pacific Island Ecosystems Research Center, Hawaii National Park, HI, 96718, USA

    David Foote

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  1. Cause Hanna
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  2. Erin D. Cook
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  3. Ariel R. Thompson
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  7. Michael A. D. Goodisman
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Correspondence to Michael A. D. Goodisman.

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Cause Hanna and Erin D. Cook have contributed equally to this work.

Appendix

Appendix

See Tables 3 and 4.

Table 3 Approximate size of amplicons and annealing temperatures (Ta) for microsatellite loci that amplified in V. pensylvanica
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Table 4 Approximate size of amplicon and annealing temperature (Ta) for mitochondrial DNA loci that amplified in V. pensylvanica
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Hanna, C., Cook, E.D., Thompson, A.R. et al. Colony social structure in native and invasive populations of the social wasp Vespula pensylvanica . Biol Invasions 16, 283–294 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10530-013-0517-9

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