Individual variation in queen morphology and behavior predicts colony performance in the wild

摘要

The founders of a social group or colony have the potential to greatly influence the success or failure of the societies that they initiate. Whether through their genetic contribution, or through behavioral maternal effects related to temperament, resource acquisition, or brood care, the traits of founders deserve special consideration. The queens of many social insects are ideally suited to address questions relating to the importance of founder traits due to her solitary involvement in performing a multitude of tasks necessary to produce a functioning colony. While it has been suggested that a queen's behavioral phenotype might contribute to differences in colony success, no study has yet demonstrated these links in situ. Here, we use the singly founding (haplometrotic) paper wasp Polistes metricus to examine whether queen personality, measured shortly after colony founding (pre-emergent phase), and morphology, can predict colony size (a proxy for queen fitness) and parasite load in the wild. We found that larger and bolder queens gave rise to larger colonies than smaller and shyer queens, and there was no relationship between queen personality and parasite load. Differences in queen traits therefore appear to be a major determinant of colony success under field conditions.