How to Design Experiments in Animal Behaviour: 10. Why Do Wasps Fight? Part 2

Gadagkar, R (2020) How to Design Experiments in Animal Behaviour: 10. Why Do Wasps Fight? Part 2. In: Resonance, 25 (1). pp. 111-131.

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Abstract

Continuing to explore the intriguing world of the Indian paper wasp Ropalidia marginata for one last time, here we will focus on the function of fighting behaviour in two additional contexts (i) the hyper-aggression of the potential queen during queen succession and (ii) during encounters with non-nestmate wasps. We will see again that the function of fighting is different in different contexts. We have already seen two different functions of fighting in two different contexts�to decide who will be the queen and who will be the worker in the context of founding new nests, and to regulate foraging in mature colonies by conveying colony hunger levels to foragers. Here we will see that the function of the potential queen�s hyper-aggression is to boost her own ovarian development and the function of aggression towards non-nestmates is to keep them away, and if necessary, to kill! As before, our primary focus will be on how to design simple experiments that will help answer a direct question, while minimising the need for expensive equipment or other facilities. © 2020, Indian Academy of Sciences.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Publication:	Resonance
Publisher:	Springer
Additional Information:	The copyright of this article belongs to Springer
Department/Centre:	Division of Biological Sciences > Centre for Ecological Sciences
Date Deposited:	11 Aug 2020 10:27
Last Modified:	11 Aug 2020 10:27
URI:	http://eprints.iisc.ac.in/id/eprint/64888

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