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Social wasps lose face recognition abilities in isolation

Social wasps lose face recognition abilities in isolation
Social wasps lose face recognition abilities in isolation

Just as humans are challenged from the social isolation caused by the coronavirus pandemic, a new study finds that a solitary lifestyle has profound effects on the brains of a social insect: paper wasps.

Paper wasps recognize the brightly colored faces of other paper wasps, an ability they lose when reared in isolation. The wasps' ability to remember faces is similar to primates and humans, but unlike other social insects.

The study revealed that when adult wasps are housed in solitude, visual areas of their brains—especially those involved with identifying nuanced color patterns and shapes—are smaller and less developed than their peers who lived with other wasps.

"The wasps provide us with a simple insect brain that offers a system for understanding the basic constructs of how neural circuits work and how social interactions shaped the brain," said Michael Sheehan, the Nancy and Peter Meinig Family Investigator in the Life Sciences, and assistant professor in the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

Sheehan's previous research has shown how well and quickly the wasps recognize faces as well as simple shapes and color patterns. A recent University of Michigan study also revealed that these wasps lose their ability to recognize faces when raised in isolation, as opposed to being nest-reared.

These paper wasps, native to the eastern United States, live in smaller colonies (up to a few hundred individuals) than honeybees (tens of thousands). Also, unlike honeybees whose hives have a single queen, paper wasps can have multiple queens. When starting nests each spring, these future queens can form small groups that collaborate on labor. Still, colonies have social hierarchies and competition. The dominant queen monopolizes egg-laying and subordinate queens do most of the work. Subordinates may leaving the nest to join another or start their own colony if they feel the arrangement isn't fair.

"There's tension of balancing conflicts among the cooperating queens," Sheehan said, "and that seems to be the thing that has favored individuals to recognize each other, to know who's who, how work is being divided up, whether they are getting their fair share. It seems to help to manage conflicts."

Source Phys.org

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