Effect of climate on strategies of nest and body temperature regulation in paper wasps, Polistes biglumis and Polistes gallicus

Abstract

Polistes paper wasps are a widespread taxon inhabiting various climates. They build nests in the open without a protective outer layer, which makes them vulnerable to changing temperatures. To better understand the options they have to react to environmental variation and climate change, we here compare the thermoregulatory behavior of Polistes biglumis from cool Alpine climate with Polistes gallicus from warm Mediterranean climate. Behavioral plasticity helps both of them to withstand environmental variation. P. biglumis builds the nests oriented toward east-south-east to gain solar heat of the morning sun. This increases the brood temperature considerably above the ambience, which speeds up brood development. P. gallicus, by contrast, mostly avoids nesting sites with direct insolation, which protects their brood from heat stress on hot days. To keep the brood temperature below 40–42 °C on warm days, the adults of the two species show differential use of their common cooling behaviors. While P. biglumis prefers fanning of cool ambient air onto the nest heated by the sun and additionally cools with water drops, P. gallicus prefers cooling with water drops because fanning of warm ambient air onto a warm nest would not cool it, and restricts fanning to nests heated by the sun.

The costs of overwintering in paper wasps (Polistes dominula and Polistes gallicus): the use of energy stores

“…For spring activity, the reduction of spring reserves will reduce the time window for first foraging flights. Though paper wasps were reported to flexibly adapt thermal brood care behavior to changing conditions (Stabentheiner et al 2022 ), it remains unclear to what extent they are able to adapt their behavior and physiology to cope with unfavorable (warmer) future environment conditions, except by dispersing to cooler regions.…”

Urban Pest Abundance and Public Enquiries in Zurich 1991–2022

“…The extensive record and stable population of the Vespidae mean that they can be effectively studied via the UPAS database. Vespidae have shown the importance of temperature regulation in wasps [28], although it is both temperature and pressure that seem to regulate the phenology of wasps in Poland [29]. The UPAS data show the number of records for Vespidae are at their highest in July and August, the sum across these two months (N 7-8 ) was compared with the monthly temperature (T) and precipitation (P) for the years 1991-2022, giving the best fit to the multiple regression equation:…”

Adaptive genomic variation is linked to a climatic gradient in a social wasp

“…Many bees also adjust their level of sociality depending on environmental conditions (Wcislo and Fewell 2017), including forming groups to conserve body mass and heat in the winter (Ostwald et al 2022). Similarly, Polistine social wasps distributed globally and exposed to different climates, vary in their nesting behavior (Miller et al 2018, Sheehan et al 2015) and thermoregulatory responses (Stabentheiner et al 2022). Comparative analyses of genomic variation across populations therefore can identify candidate genes involved in shaping local adaptation and facilitate predicting future ranges and sociality in cooperative species (Perez and Aron 2020, Hartke et al 2021).…”