The Impact of Climate on the Energetics of Overwintering Paper Wasp Gynes (Polistes dominula and Polistes gallicus).

ABSTRACT: Gynes of paper wasps (Polistes sp.) spend the cold season in sheltered hibernacles. These hibernacles protect against predators and adverse weather conditions but offer only limited protection against low temperatures. During overwintering diapause, wasps live on the energy they store. We investigated the hibernacles' microclimate conditions of species from the Mediterranean (Italy, P. dominula, P. gallicus) and temperate (Austria, P. dominula) climates in order to describe the environmental conditions and calculate the energetic demand of overwintering according to standard metabolic rate functions. The temperatures at the hibernacles differed significantly between the Mediterranean and temperate habitats (average in Austria: 3.2 ± 5.71 °C, in Italy: 8.5 ± 5.29

SUBMITTER: Kovac H 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10672273 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature