Social wasps reap the benefits of individualism

A sampling of face patterns in Polistes fuscatus paper wasps

A sampling of face patterns in Polistes fuscatus paper wasps

Polistes fuscatus paper wasps sport a bewildering array of facial markings.  Why is this?

A new paper by Michael Sheehan and Elizabeth Tibbetts in the journal Evolution suggests natural selection may favor rare patterns, leading to a proliferation of diversity.  Sheehan & Tibbetts performed an elegant experiment on 18 groups of 4 foundress queens, painting three wasps with one pattern and the remaining one with a different pattern.  Regardless of the details of the actual face markings, the rare pattern consistently received less aggression than the common patterns.  In paper wasps, at least, different is better.

(as an aside, I should mention that I met Elizabeth Tibbetts in an elevator at the IUSSI meeting in Washington, D.C.  She introduced herself after she read my name badge and recognized who I was. Seems individual recognition is useful in our species, too...)

source: Sheehan, M. J., Tibbetts, E. A. 2009. Evolution of Identity Signals: Frequency-Dependent Benefits of Distinctive Phenotypes Used for Individual Recognition. Evolution online early, doi: 10.1111/j.1558-5646.2009.00833.x

More like this

Multiple foundress queens of Acromyrmex versicolor atop their shared fungus garden. A striking result from recent studies on the co-evolution of leafcutter ants and their fungus is that the two lineages do not show a tight pattern of coevolution.  That is, the evolutionary relationships among…
tags: researchblogging.org, Brown paper wasp, Polistes fuscatus, hymenoptera, evolution, eusociality, social behavior Brown paper wasp , Polistes fuscatus. Fairport, New York, USA. 2003. Many thanks to Alex Wild for sharing his amazing images here. Thanks to Elizabeth Tibbetts for the species…
Achenbach, A., Foitzik, S. 2009. FIRST EVIDENCE FOR SLAVE REBELLION: ENSLAVED ANT WORKERS SYSTEMATICALLY KILL THE BROOD OF THEIR SOCIAL PARASITE PROTOMOGNATHUS AMERICANUS .  Evolution, Online Early, doi: 10.1111/j.1558-5646.2009.00591.x Abstract: During the process of coevolution, social parasites…
Just lately there's been a flurry of papers on speciation that I haven't had time to digest properly. Several of them seem to support "sympatric" or localised speciation based on selection for local resources with reproductive isolation a side effect of divergent selection. So here they are below…