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Title: Quantitative differences in nourishment affect caste-related physiology and development in the paper wasp Polistes metricus

Author
item JUDD, TIMOTHY - Southeast Missouri State University
item Teal, Peter
item HERNANDEZ, EDGAR - University Of Missouri
item CHOUDHURY, TALBIA - North Carolina State University
item HUNT, JAMES - North Carolina State University

Submitted to: PLOS ONE
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 1/16/2015
Publication Date: 2/23/2015
Citation: Judd, T.M., Teal, P.E., Hernandez, E.J., Choudhury, T., Hunt, J.H. 2015. Quantitative differences in nourishment affect caste-related physiology and development in the paper wasp Polistes metricus. PLoS One. 10(2):e0116199. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0116199.

Interpretive Summary: A curious phenomena in wasps is that females can be either reproductive or not. The reason for this is unknown but we do know that at certain times of the year females may take either role. Scientists at the Department of Biological Science University of Missouri Saint Louis and North Carolina State University along with the Department of Entomology, North Carolina State University an the Center for Medical Agricultural and Veterinary Entomology, USDA-ARS in Gainesville Florida studies how this switch from the worker cast to reproductive cast occurs. They discovered that the activation of reproductive physiology is likely a developmental response to feeding during larval development. This is important because it helps explain why, during certain times of the year, offspring become workers while at other times they become reproductives and start new colonies.

Technical Abstract: The distinction between worker and reproductive castes of social insects is receiving increased attention from a developmental rather than adaptive perspective. In the wasp genus Polistes, colonies are founded by one or more females, and the female offspring that emerge in that colony are either non-reproducing workers or future reproductives of the following generation (gynes). A growing number of studies now indicate that workers emerge with activated reproductive physiology, whereas the future reproductive gynes do not. Low nourishment levels for larvae during the worker-rearing phase of the colony cycle and higher nourishment levels for larvae when gynes are reared are now strongly suspected of playing a major role in this difference. Here, we present the results of a laboratory rearing experiment in which Polistes metricus single foundresses were held in environmental conditions with a higher level of control than in any previously published study, and the amount of protein nourishment made available to feed larvae was the only input variable. Three experimental feeding treatments were restricted, unrestricted, and hand-supplemented. Meta-analysis of multiple response variables shows that wasps reared on restricted protein nourishment, which would be the case for wasps reared in field conditions that subsequently become workers, tend toward trait values that characterize active reproductive physiology. Wasps reared on unrestricted and hand-supplemented protein, which replicates higher feeding levels for larvae in field conditions that subsequently become gynes, tend toward trait values that characterize inactive reproductive physiology. Although the experiment was not designed to test for worker behavior per se, our results further implicate activated reproductive physiology as a developmental response to low larval nourishment as a fundamental aspect of worker behavior in Polistes.