[8] The yellow paper wasp is generally predatory, capturing a wide range of insects, although it often feeds on pollen and nectar as well.

Within the subfamily Polistinae of the family Vespidae, the genus Polistes (paper wasps) has about 200 species distributed throughout the world mostly in the tropical region.

A widely studied genus, Polistes is now considered a model organism useful in understanding the evolution of social behavior.

Before beginning the construction, the foundress first makes recognition flights, inspecting the structure to be used for the nest by flying close to the selected area and touching the substrate with its antennae.

Foundations of nests on gypsum plaster have been found to be significantly larger than those on other types of substrate, a testament to the synanthropy of the yellow paper wasp.

[4] Once the location for the new colony foundation is established, the construction begins with the peduncle: vegetable material is chewed with saliva and then attached to the substrate in thread form.

In southeastern Brazil, aggregations of the yellow paper wasp start in early March, before winter, and last until mid-August.

Newly emerged females can thus choose to be workers, waiting a year to be a foundress until more favorable conditions arise.

The yellow paper wasps may have adapted to this situation, preferring to reuse cells instead of increasing the size of the nest.

Habitat quality has been shown to help contribute to the lower colony productivity in these environments greatly altered by human activity.

For example, the amount of resources (such as the larvae of other insects) available for feeding immatures has been more limited in habitats with higher human activity.

The dominant female holds a monopoly on egg-laying, thereby spending longer periods of time within the nest while the workers forage.

Conflicts of interest among future foundresses remain high as they compete over the shared resources of nourishment, such as protein.

No single individual (or queen) is responsible for starting and stopping periods of activity or physically stimulating the departure of workers.

The subordinates can remain potentially fertile and can eventually oviposit, but under extreme dominance conditions, some females reabsorb their oocytes in the nest’s postemergence phase.

The low genetic relatedness is another consequence of the presence of more than one egg-laying female in about 40% of yellow paper wasp colonies.

This suggests that dominant queens partially lose control of their monopoly on reproduction in the nests, resulting in several other females occasionally laying eggs.

[6] Evidence for the establishment of sociality as an optimization strategy for P. versicolor can be seen in the frequent shift in females between adjacent nests.

[8] The wasp walks over the cells of the nest and wiggles its gaster horizontally, with the last abdominal segment suspended over the pupae and larvae.

It is suspected that the wagging movements may be related to the release of “dominance pheromones” during cell inspection and food exchange with larvae.

These wagging movements, along with other communication mechanisms, such as lateral vibration, antennae touching and aggression are social behaviors that these yellow paper wasps use to state the needs of the colony.

For example, the wagging movements can signal the arrival of new material into the nest and aggression between workers can be used to stimulate others to increase foraging expeditions.

While they don’t typically have a prey preference, the yellow paper wasps usually feed on insects from the orders Lepidoptera (95.4%) and Coleoptera (1.1%).

Since the nests are single combs fixed to a substrate by a peduncle, the suspended cells are often protected from attack by ants.

Thus, these yellow paper wasp colonies can prove to be a powerful strategy for pest management of herbivorous insects, especially defoliating caterpillars.

By transferring P. versicolor to artificial shelters, these colonies can be managed and used to restore the balance between the species in agricultural ecosystems with relatively minimal costs.

While foraging for these food supplies, especially nectar, the yellow paper wasps are able to simultaneously pollinate many flowering plants.

The 5-HT in this venom has been found to play at least two roles: one in defense as a pain-producing agent and the other in the distribution and penetration of the paralyzing components to vulnerable sites in the offender.

These factors work in combination to produce pain by depolarizing certain sensory nerve endings as the result of ion movements and changes in permeability.

In addition, these proteins work to increase the rate of absorption of the paralyzing venom into tissues and body fluids.