Abdominal Waggings and Variation of Their Rate of Occurrence in the Social Wasp, Polistes dominulus Christ. I. Quantitative Analysis

1572-8889

Abdominal waggings ; evolution over time ; communication ; social wasps

Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000

Biology

Abstract The quantitative study of abdominal waggings in Polistes dominulus Christ, covering a total of 16,000 sequences of movements observed in 13 colonies (mono- and polygyne), showed or confirmed the following points. The same form of abdominal wagging, very frequent in this species, is carried out by foundresses in two contexts: when they are caring for their brood and during aggressive encounters with other adults. While the dominant female shows this behavior most often, it predominantly concerns “aggressive” waggings (0.51 sequence per social interaction for alpha females, 0.12 and 0.04 for beta and gamma); the movements related to feeding larvae are distributed much better among the foundresses of Polygyne nests (0.38 sequence per cell check for alpha, 0.24 and 0.21 for beta and gamma). The number of waggings carried out by the workers is negligible in normally constituted colonies (0.006 and 0.01, respectively, for the two contexts). The rate of occurrence of abdominal waggings changes with time. This change is opposite and symmetrical for the two types of waggings, although we were not able to establish any correlation between the number of the movements linked to feeding the larvae and the abundance or the composition of the brood. Abdominal wagging therefore appears as a means of communication between the different members in Polistes society, used in varying degrees by all foundresses; the change of its rate of occurrence over time suggests a possible influence on larvae, hence on the future status of newborn wasps (workers or future foundresses).

Electronic Resource