Multi-level social organization and nest-drifting behaviour in a eusocial insect.

ABSTRACT: Stable social groups usually consist of families. However, recent studies have revealed higher level social structure, with interactions between family groups across different levels of social organization in multiple species. The explanations for why this apparently paradoxical behaviour arises appear to be varied and remain untested. Here, we use automated radio-tagging data from over 1000 wasps from 93 nests and social network analyses of over 30 000 nest visitation records to describe and explain interactions across levels of social organization in the eusocial paper wasp Polistes canadensis. We detected three levels of social organization (nest, aggregation and community) which exchange 'drifter' individuals within and between levels. The highest level (community) may be influe

SUBMITTER: Lengronne T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8097211 | biostudies-literature | 2021 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature