Viral load, not food availability or temperature, predicts colony longevity in an invasive eusocial wasp with plastic life history.

ABSTRACT: Social insect colonies exhibit a variety of life history strategies, from the annual, semelparous colonies of temperate bees and wasps to the long-lived colonies of many ants and honeybees. Species introduced to novel habitats may exhibit plasticity in life history strategies as a result of the introduction, but the factors governing these changes often remain obscure. Vespula pensylvanica, a yellowjacket wasp, exhibits such plasticity in colony longevity. Multi-year (perennial) colonies are relatively common in introduced populations in Hawaii, while source populations in the western United States are typically on an annual cycle. Here, we use experiments and observational data to examine how diet, disease, nest thermal environment, and nest location influence colony longevity in a popula

SUBMITTER: Loope KJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8115236 | biostudies-literature | 2021 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature