FLEXIBLE FORAGING DECISIONS MADE BY WORKERS OF Vespula germanica IN RESPONSE TO DIFFERENT RESOURCES

MASCIOCCHI MAITÉ; CORLEY JUAN CARLOS; MATTIACCI ANALIA

Montevideo

Congreso; II Reunión Biología del Comportamiento del Cono Sur; 2019

Universidad de la República Montevideo Uruguay

Forage animals must decide whether to exploit the source found or to explore new sources. Decision depends on the value of the source, which can be absolute (e.g. quality, quantity, or type of resource) or relative. Depending on the individual's ontogeny, previous experience and, in social insects, the needs of the colony, the relative value of the source may vary. With the aim of understanding how the workers of a scavenger and opportunistic eusocial wasp with strong cognitive abilities, are able to resolve decision making, we trained wasps to a rich-carbohydrate source or a rich-protein source that was subsequently changed to one of the same type or of a different one. We tested the acceptance to source change on (1) wasps without previous experience and no colony contact, (2) wasps with previous experience and no colony contact, and (3) wasps with previous experience and with colony contact. We observed that the acceptance of protein rich resources of individual wasps (workers without social contact) decreased if they foraged on carbohydrates previously, whereas the carbohydrate was always accepted indistinctly of what they had foraged before. However, wasps immersed in a social context, preferred not to collect carbohydrates if they were previously consuming proteins, but they accepted proteins regardless of what they had foraged before. We suggest that colony demands have a strong influence in wasps foraging behavior, being this influence able to even reverse wasps? individual behavior.