Lack of field-based recruitment to carbohydrate food in the Korean yellowjacket, Vespula koreensis

Abstract

We investigated field-based recruitment via visual, chemical and acoustic cues provided by conspecific wasps on carbohydrate feeders in Vespula koreensis. A wild colony nest was excavated and artificially installed in a field site. Naïve foragers were individually marked and trained to an experimental feeder. We conducted three separate experiments in which foragers were presented with feeder dishes with different cue intensities. For the first, a different number of decoys were posed as if feeding (visual cue). In the second, dishes had been previously visited by different numbers of individuals, thus presenting different concentrations of a possible food site marking substance (chemical cue). In the third, each dish was placed in front of a covered flask with a different number of nestmates inside (acoustic cue combined with body-odor cue). We observed no social facilitation or social inhibition due to any of the experimental cues. Previous studies in Vespula species have shown a variety of foraging strategies ranging from local enhancement to local inhibition. Field-based recruitment mechanisms in yellowjackets may have evolved independently in different lineages. © 2007 The Ecological Society of Japan.