Swarm Recruitment Behavior in Wasps

[9222108]珍妮在群居黄蜂中，最引人注目的是热带黄蜂，它们以称为蜂群的大群体建立新的殖民地。24个“建群”属是从一种更原始的类型进化而来的，这种类型在热带动物群中仍有代表，在这种类型中，一个或几个受精的蜂王独立行动，不需要工蜂的帮助，就能建立殖民地。建立群体的物种不仅形成了最大、最显眼、最好斗的群体，而且它们在生态上主宰着“独立缔造者”，在某些地方，它们的绝对数量是“独立缔造者”的几千倍。群体创始人取得惊人成功的一个重要原因是，他们的整个生命周期都是作为一个群体度过的。这使它们在对抗热带地区生命面临的高风险捕食方面具有优势。除非侦察兵黄蜂选择了一个合适的地方筑巢，并能把它的位置告诉其他黄蜂，否则蜂群就不能工作。只有一个物种知道这是如何做到的：侦察兵会留下化学气味的痕迹，它们的群体同伴会跟随它们到达新的地点。这种气味是由这个物种腹部的一个特殊腺体产生的。许多其他的群建属也有相同的腺体，但其中一些腺体的形式不同，表明有其他功能。还有一些物种完全没有腺体，这表明它们有其他方式招募群体成员。这些事实表明(1)化学痕迹在蜂群形成者中并不普遍，(2)蜂群形成本身可能有两个或更多独立的起源。Jeanne博士研究的最终目标是确定七个关键群体建立属所使用的特定群体招募机制，并使用结果来测试这些机制进化的几个假设。研究结果将大大改善种群建立属之间的交流进化的多样性，并为群体招募机制的进化提供明确的系统发育模型。这将使对这些机制的适应意义进行严格的比较研究成为可能。最后，这项研究将有助于理解昆虫中一种非常成功的社会行为形式的进化。

9222108 Jeanne The most remarkable of the social wasps are the tropical species in which new colonies are established by large groups called swarms. The 24 "swarm-founding" genera evolved from a more primitive type, still represented in the tropical fauna, in which colonies are founded by one or a few inseminated queens acting independently, without the help of workers. Not only do the swarm-founding species form the largest, most conspicuous, and most pugnacious colonies, but they dominate the "independent-founders" ecologically, exceeding them in sheer numbers in some localities by several thousand to one. An important reason for the striking success of the swarm-founders is that their entire life cycle is spent as a group. This gives them an advantage in countering the high risk of predation that faces life in the tropics. Swarming cannot work unless the scout wasps, who choose a site suitable for a new nest, can communicate its location to the rest of the swarm. How this is done is known for one species only: the scouts lay a trail of chemical scent-marks, which their swarm-mates follow to the new site. The scent is produced by a particular gland on the abdomen in this species. A number of other swarm- founding genera have the same gland, but in some of these the form of the gland is different, suggesting other functions. In still other species the gland is entirely lacking, suggesting other means of recruiting swarm members. These facts suggest (1) that chemical trails are not universal among swarm-founders and (2) that swarm-founding itself may have had two or more independent origins. The ultimate objective of Dr. Jeanne's research is to determine the specific swarm-recruitment mechanisms utilized by seven key swarm-founding genera and to use the results to test among several hypotheses on the evolution of these mechanisms. The results will yield a much-improved picture of the varieties of communication evolved among the swarm-founding genera and provide an explicit phylogenetic model for the evolution of swarm-recruitment mechanisms. This will make it possible to conduct rigorous comparative studies on the adaptive significance of these mechanisms. Finally, the research will contribute significantly to understanding the evolution of an extraordinarily successful form of social behavior in insects.