In what experts have described as a ‘remarkable act of selflessness’, some wasp colonies are lending their extra workers to look in nearby nests, a study has found.
Researchers from the UK studied about 20,000 baby Neotropical paper wasps and their caretakers from 91 different colonies in Panama, including near the canal.
Paper wasps are named for the gray and brown paper-like materials they make from a mixture of plant wood and saliva and are used to build their nests.
The team found that as colonies grow, the usefulness of individual workers’ wasps diminishes as they become more overworked.
This frees up some of the workers to help the most distant relatives who live in nearby small colonies that are close to workers.
These activities are only self-contained and altruistic, however, as they cost the employee time and energy. They also have fringe benefits.
When wasps help their distant relatives, it increases the chance that the DNA they share with the colony will survive with support.
In what experts have called a ‘remarkable act of selflessness’, some wasp colonies lend their extra workers to look in nearby nests, a study has found. Pictured is a paper wasp nest
‘These wasps can be wealthy family members giving birth to their second cousins,’ said the paper’s author and biologist Patrick Kennedy of Bristol University.
‘If you can’t do much more to help your immediate family, you can turn your attention to the extended family,’ he said.
‘By helping more distant relatives who are more in need – those living next door with fewer carers – staff can provide more copies of their genes all in all, ’explained paper co-author and behavioral ecologist Andy Radford, also from Bristol.
‘We believe that principles such as outcome reduction may explain altruism-like paradoxical activities in many other social animals.’
Dr Kennedy said: ‘The fact that these paper wasps in Central and South America help in other colonies is very strange when you consider that most wasps, ants and bees are good hostile to outsiders.
To solve this interesting behavior, we combined mathematical modeling with our detailed site observation. We ended up being stuck a lot. But it was worth it, because our results show that workers ’wasps can be unemployed at home.
‘A wasp on a colony with very few larvae but many other workers is almost useless – the best thing to do is look after the larvae of other relatives.’
Researchers from the UK studied around 20,000 baby Neotropical paper wasps (pictured) and their carers from 91 different colonies in Panama, including near the canal
The fact that forms of ‘altruism’ come from nature seems to have been an open question since the age of naturalist Charles Darwin – because, at first glance, it would seem unlikely that other people would provide a way to pass living things to their genes.
However, Dr. Radford explained, ‘in 1964, the legendary biologist WD Hamilton was outlining the high-level rule of animal altruism.’
‘Lavish help your family because they share many of your genes. Copies of your genes win in the crowd. ‘
Dr Hamilton had also studied tropical paper wasps – but was upset, while studying Polistes’ wasps in Brazil, to see workers leaving the family close in their own nests to help those of the neighboring colonies, who had distant relatives.
The new findings, however, explain how paper wasps can help the most distant relatives in certain situations – and reap the benefits of evolution.
The team found that as colonies grow, the usefulness of individual workers’ wasps diminishes as they become more overworked. This frees up some of the workers to their more distant relatives who live in smaller nearby colonies that are close to workers.
This study drew on previous work by paper co-author and behavioral ecologist Seirian Sumner of University College London, who showed that more than half of the staff in a population of Panamanian wasps help on several nests.
‘Wasps offer amazing windows into an evolution of instability,’ she said.
‘There is so much going on in a wasp’s nest: power struggle, self-sacrifice, groups fighting against the living for survival.’
‘If we want to understand how societies grow, we should take a deeper look at wasps,’ concluded Dr Sumner.
The full results of the study were published in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution.