High reproductive skew in the Neotropical paper wasp Polistes lanio
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Insectes Sociaux
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High reproductive skew in the Neotropical paper wasp Polistes lanio R. J. Southon1,2 · A. N. Radford2 · S. Sumner1 Received: 30 March 2020 / Revised: 30 June 2020 / Accepted: 5 August 2020 / Published online: 2 September 2020 © International Union for the Study of Social Insects (IUSSI) 2020
Abstract Reproductive conflicts are expected in societies where nonbreeding helpers retain the ability to produce offspring. Despite potential competition from reproductively capable nestmates in social wasps, egg laying tends to be monopolised by a single or relatively few queens. Genetic studies on reproductive partitioning in Polistes paper wasps suggest high reproductive skew in the genus. Conflict is thought to be minimal due to nestmate relatedness or the possibility of inheriting a reproductive monopoly on a nest; consequently, there are inclusive fitness opportunities for nonreproductive helpers. However, most studies are limited to temperate wasp species. Given the cosmopolitan distribution of Polistes, genetic data on group conflicts are required for a broader range of tropical species to determine whether these trends apply across climatic zones. We examined female reproductive skew in the Neotropical paper wasp Polistes lanio, genotyping a selection of adults and pupae from established post-emergence nests using single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). SNP-based pedigree analyses indicate a reproductive monopoly held by a single queen, with queen replacement from natal nestmates and evidence of possible multiple mating. Relatedness between pupal offspring was high (r = 0.71). It is likely that high reproductive skew among females is a founding trait of Polistes societies, conserved among species that have spread into new environments from Indomalayan origins. Keywords Reproductive skew · Polistes · Single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) · Pedigrees
Introduction Societies with many potential breeders must resolve withingroup reproductive conflict over who produces young (Clutton-Brock 2009; West et al. 2002). Reproductive skew measures the outcome of such conflict. High reproductive skew is representative of societies in which reproduction is monopolised by a few breeding individuals, whilst low skew is typical of egalitarian societies where reproduction is more equally shared (Ratnieks et al. 2006; Reeve and Keller Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s00040-020-00780-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * R. J. Southon [email protected] 1
Centre for Biodiversity and Environmental Research, Department of Genetics Evolution and Environment, Division of Biosciences, University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, UK
School of Biological Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 1TQ, UK
2
2001). When reproduction in a group is limited to a few individuals, there must be a payoff to nonreproductives to continue cooperating (Aureli and de Waal 2000; Hamil
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