The energetic costs of stereotyped behavior in the paper wasp, Polistes dominulus |
| |
Authors: | Susan A Weiner William A Woods Jr Philip T Starks |
| |
Institution: | (1) Department of Biology, Tufts University, 163 Packard Ave, Medford, MA 02155, USA |
| |
Abstract: | Polistes wasps engage in many behavioral interactions. Although there has been debate over the meaning of these interactions, these
stereotypical behaviors can be used to determine a colony’s linear dominance hierarchy. Due to the implicit relationship between
behavioral and reproductive dominance, behavioral interactions are commonly used to distinguish the reproductively dominant
alpha foundress from the beta foundress. It has been suggested that in order to maintain reproductive control, the alpha foundress
is forced to remain at a physiologically constrained activity limit. This, in turn, may allow aggressive interactions to be
used as determinants influencing reproductive partitioning between cooperating individuals. Energetic costs can place important
limitations on behavior, but the energetic cost of the interactions has not previously been measured. To address this, we
measured the CO2 production of 19 non-nestmate pairs displaying interactive and noninteractive behavior. The rate of energy used during interaction
behavior was positively associated with published rankings of aggression. However, our results indicate that interactions
are not very energetically costly in Polistes, particularly when compared to the likely cost of foraging. These data suggest that maintaining reproductive dominance is
not very energetically expensive for the dominant and that the dominant foundress expends energy at a lower rate than the
subordinate foundress.
Electronic Supplementary Material The online version of this article (doi:) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. |
| |
Keywords: | Polistes dominulus Energetics Dominance hierarchies Reproductive skew |
本文献已被 PubMed SpringerLink 等数据库收录! |
|