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Life history plasticity magnifies the ecological effects of a social wasp invasion.

ABSTRACT: An unresolved question in ecology concerns why the ecological effects of invasions vary in magnitude. Many introduced species fail to interact strongly with the recipient biota, whereas others profoundly disrupt the ecosystems they invade through predation, competition, and other mechanisms. In the context of ecological impacts, research on biological invasions seldom considers phenotypic or microevolutionary changes that occur following introduction. Here, we show how plasticity in key life history traits (colony size and longevity), together with omnivory, magnifies the predatory impacts of an invasive social wasp (Vespula pensylvanica) on a largely endemic arthropod fauna in Hawaii. Using a combination of molecular, experimental, and behavioral approaches, we demonstrate (i) that yellowjackets consume an astonishing diversity of arthropod resources and depress prey populations in invaded Hawaiian ecosystems and (ii) that their impact as predators in this region increases when they shift from small annual colonies to large perennial colonies. Such trait plasticity may influence invasion success and the degree of disruption that invaded ecosystems experience. Moreover, postintroduction phenotypic changes may help invaders to compensate for reductions in adaptive potential resulting from founder events and small population sizes. The dynamic nature of biological invasions necessitates a more quantitative understanding of how postintroduction changes in invader traits affect invasion processes.

SUBMITTER: Wilson EE

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2722302 | biostudies-literature | 2009 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Life history plasticity magnifies the ecological effects of a social wasp invasion.

Wilson Erin E EE Mullen Lynne M LM Holway David A DA

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 20090722 31

An unresolved question in ecology concerns why the ecological effects of invasions vary in magnitude. Many introduced species fail to interact strongly with the recipient biota, whereas others profoundly disrupt the ecosystems they invade through predation, competition, and other mechanisms. In the context of ecological impacts, research on biological invasions seldom considers phenotypic or microevolutionary changes that occur following introduction. Here, we show how plasticity in key life his ...[more]

PMID: 19625616

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Project description:Studies of social microbes often focus on one fitness component (reproductive success within the social complex), with little information about or attention to other stages of the life cycle or the ecological context. This can lead to paradoxical results. The life cycle of the social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum includes a multicellular stage in which not necessarily clonal amoebae aggregate upon starvation to form a possibly chimeric (genetically heterogeneous) fruiting body made of dead stalk cells and spores. The lab-measured reproductive skew in the spores of chimeras indicates strong social antagonism that should result in low genotypic diversity, which is inconsistent with observations from nature. Two studies have suggested that this inconsistency stems from the one-dimensional assessment of fitness (spore production) and that the solution lies in tradeoffs between multiple life-history traits, e.g.: spore size versus viability; and spore-formation (via aggregation) versus staying vegetative (as non-aggregated cells). We develop an ecologically-grounded, socially-neutral model (i.e. no social interactions between genotypes) for the life cycle of social amoebae in which we theoretically explore multiple non-social life-history traits, tradeoffs and tradeoff-implementing mechanisms. We find that spore production comes at the expense of time to complete aggregation, and, depending on the experimental setup, spore size and viability. Furthermore, experimental results regarding apparent social interactions within chimeric mixes can be qualitatively recapitulated under this neutral hypothesis, without needing to invoke social interactions. This allows for simple potential resolutions to the previously paradoxical results. We conclude that the complexities of life histories, including social behavior and multicellularity, can only be understood in the appropriate multidimensional ecological context, when considering all stages of the life cycle.

Project description:We tested whether the early-life environment can influence the extent of individual plasticity in a life-history trait. We asked: can the early-life environment explain why, in response to the same adult environmental cue, some individuals invest more than others in current reproduction? Moreover, can it additionally explain why investment in current reproduction trades off against survival in some individuals, but is positively correlated with survival in others? We addressed these questions using the burying beetle, which breeds on small carcasses and sometimes carries phoretic mites. These mites breed alongside the beetle, on the same resource, and are a key component of the beetle's early-life environment. We exposed female beetles to mites twice during their lives: during their development as larvae and again as adults during their first reproductive event. We measured investment in current reproduction by quantifying average larval mass and recorded the female's life span after breeding to quantify survival. We found no effect of either developing or breeding alongside mites on female reproductive investment, nor on her life span, nor did developing alongside mites influence her size. In post hoc analyses, where we considered the effect of mite number (rather than their mere presence/absence) during the female's adult breeding event, we found that females invested more in current reproduction when exposed to greater mite densities during reproduction, but only if they had been exposed to mites during development as well. Otherwise, they invested less in larvae at greater mite densities. Furthermore, females that had developed with mites exhibited a trade-off between investment in current reproduction and future survival, whereas these traits were positively correlated in females that had developed without mites. The early-life environment thus generates individual variation in life-history plasticity. We discuss whether this is because mites influence the resources available to developing young or serve as important environmental cues.

Dataset Information

Life history plasticity magnifies the ecological effects of a social wasp invasion.

Publications

Life history plasticity magnifies the ecological effects of a social wasp invasion.

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