Caste differences and morphological skew in the swarm-founding wasp Agelaia timida Cooper, 2000 (Hymenoptera, Vespidae, Epiponini)

Title Variants

Alternative: Caste Differences and Morphological Skew in Agelaia timida

Related Titles

Series: American Museum novitates, no. 4017

By

Noll, Fernando Barbosa
Da Silva, Marjorie,
Somavilla, Alexandre
Carpenter, James M. (James Michael), 1956-

Type

Book

Material

Published material

Publication info

New York, NY, American Museum of Natural History, [2024]

Notes

Caption title.

"June 21, 2024."

Here, we tested the application of morphological skew in Agelaia timida by reporting caste dimorphism and comparing it with other epiponine species. A description of a nest of A. timidais also provided. Females were measured to investigate morphological differences between castes and dissected to assess ovarian development. Three types of ovaries were found: filamentous (workers), developed with some mature oocytes (intermediates), and developed and inseminated (queens). Queens are bigger than workers, but discriminant analysis showed castes are not morphologically distinct. Mahalanobis distance showed a statistical separation between inseminated and non-inseminated females, and the only distinct group was workers. The results differ from other species of Agelaia, which present clear-cut caste differences. Thus, A. timida fits into morphological skew theory since it forms small colonies with low caste differentiation and nonsterility of workers. These features, plus the presence of a true envelope, may be plesiomorphic, as observed in the ground plan of Epiponini.

Subjects

Morphology , Nests , paper wasps , Reproduction , Social hierarchy in animals

Call Number

QL1 .A436 no. 4017

Language

English

Identifiers

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1206/4017.1
OCLC: 1441085893