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Science 31 March 1978:
Vol. 199. no. 4336, pp. 1463 - 1465
DOI: 10.1126/science.199.4336.1463
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Articles

Intraspecific Defense: Advantage of Social Cooperation Among Paper Wasp Foundresses

GEORGE J. GAMBOA 1

1 Department of Systematics and Ecology, University of Kansas, Lawrence 66045

Foundress associations and high frequencies of conspecific nest usurpation are most common where densities of Polistes metricus are high. Here nest usurpation occurs primarily in single-foundress colonies resulting in multiple-foundress colonies having significantly greater productivities than single-foundress colonies. This is not true at low densities. Conspecific pressures and not predation or parasitism provide an advantage to cooperating wasp foundresses in P. metricus.

Submitted on October 7, 1977
Revised on December 13, 1977


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Benefits of foundress associations in the paper wasp Polistes dominulus: increased productivity and survival, but no assurance of fitness returns.
E. A. Tibbetts and H. K. Reeve (2003)
Behav. Ecol. 14, 510-514
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Social Wasps: Discrimination Between Kin and Nonkin Brood.
J. E. KLAHN and G. J. GAMBOA (1983)
Science 221, 482-484
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