Consistent differences in behavior between individuals, otherwise known as animal personalities, have become a staple in behavioral ecology due to their ability to explain a wide range of phenomena. Social organisms a...Consistent differences in behavior between individuals, otherwise known as animal personalities, have become a staple in behavioral ecology due to their ability to explain a wide range of phenomena. Social organisms are especially serviceable to animal personality techniques because they can be used to explore behavioral variation at both the individual and group level. Despite the suc- cess of personality research in social organisms generally, and social Hymenoptera in particular, social wasps （Vespidae） have received little to no attention in the personality literature. In the pre- sent study, we test Polistes metricus （Vespidae; Polistinae） paper wasp queens for the presence of repeatable variation in, and correlations （＂behavioral syndromes＂） between, several commonly used personality metrics： boldness, aggressiveness, exploration, and activity. Our results indicate that P. metricus queens exhibit personalities for all measured traits and correlations between differ- ent behavioral measures. Given that paper wasps have served as a model organism for a wide range of phenomena such as kin selection, dominance hierarchies, mate choice, facial recognition, social parasitism, and chemical recognition, we hope that our results will motivate researchers to explore whether, or to what degree, queen personality is important in their research programs.展开更多
基金This work was supported by an National Science Foundation Animal Behavior grant to J.N.P.（IOS 1352705 and 1455895）, as well as G. Murray McKinley Research Fund and the Arthur and Barbara Pape Endowment Award research grants provided through the University of Pittsburgh＇s Pymatuning Laboratory of Ecology.
文摘Consistent differences in behavior between individuals, otherwise known as animal personalities, have become a staple in behavioral ecology due to their ability to explain a wide range of phenomena. Social organisms are especially serviceable to animal personality techniques because they can be used to explore behavioral variation at both the individual and group level. Despite the suc- cess of personality research in social organisms generally, and social Hymenoptera in particular, social wasps （Vespidae） have received little to no attention in the personality literature. In the pre- sent study, we test Polistes metricus （Vespidae; Polistinae） paper wasp queens for the presence of repeatable variation in, and correlations （＂behavioral syndromes＂） between, several commonly used personality metrics： boldness, aggressiveness, exploration, and activity. Our results indicate that P. metricus queens exhibit personalities for all measured traits and correlations between differ- ent behavioral measures. Given that paper wasps have served as a model organism for a wide range of phenomena such as kin selection, dominance hierarchies, mate choice, facial recognition, social parasitism, and chemical recognition, we hope that our results will motivate researchers to explore whether, or to what degree, queen personality is important in their research programs.
