Scientists: Why we should appreciate wasps

by Helen Briggs BBC News

20 May 2019

Scientists have put together a map of the UK's wasp population, showing the distribution of key species.

Data recorded by volunteers gives an insight into where wasps are living in the nation's grasslands, woodlands and towns.

The researchers say wasps are a much maligned insect, which deserve more attention.

Rather than being "bothersome and pointless", they are in fact beneficial insects, keeping other pests in check.

Dr Seirian Sumner of University College London said wasps are nature's pest controllers and a world without wasps would mean that we would have to use a lot more pesticides to control the other insects that we dislike and find annoying.

"They're the maligned insect of the insect world - they're viewed as the gangsters, " she told the BBC. "Whereas actually we should be viewing them as a beneficial insect - they're doing us a favour, and we're just completely overlooking that favour."

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Roaches Kick Wasps in the Head to Avoid Becoming Zombies

By Mindy Weisberger, Senior Writer | October 31, 2018 12:18pm ET

A wasp that preys on cockroaches turns them into mind-controlled zombies by stinging them in the brain, and roaches were thought to be all but defenseless against this zombifying attack.

But it turns out that cockroaches have a defensive move that can protect them from becoming members of the walking dead.

Scientists recently discovered that roaches lash out at their would-be zombie-makers with powerful karate-like kicks to the attacking insect's head. Their strategy doesn't kill the wasp, but it's usually enough to send them looking for an easier victim, according to a new study. [Zombie Animals: 5 Real-Life Cases of Body-Snatching]

Zombification in this wasp-cockroach scenario is a little different than that suffered by human zombies in pop culture. The human "undead condition" usually seems to spread through bites; as in certain contagious diseases, an infusion of tainted bodily fluid passes on the "infection," turning the victim into an animated corpse with a taste for brains

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New wasps named after Crocodile Dundee and Toblerone amongst 17 new genera and 29 species

Five species are also named after institutions holding some of the largest wasp collections

Date: June 25, 2018

Source: Pensoft Publishers

Summary:

  

A total of 17 new genera and 29 new species of parasitoid wasps were identified following a study into the material deposited at major natural history collections around the globe in an attempt to further uncover the megadiverse fauna of the group of microgastrine wasps.

The novel taxa known to inhabit the tropics, including the Afrotropical, Australasian, Neotropical and the Oriental region, are published by Dr Jose Fernandez-Triana and Caroline Boudreault of the Canadian National Collection of insects in Ottawa in a monograph in the open access Journal of Hymenoptera Research.

Curiously, amongst the newly described wasps, there are several newly described genera and species, which received particularly amusing names.

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Wasps drum to alert one another of food nearby

Findings provide first evidence that wasps have complex communication about food, just as ants, bees, termites, and other social insects

Date:  May 15, 2018

Source:  LaGuardia Community College

Summary:

New research shows wasps have their own way of communicating to each other about mealtimes -- drumming on their gaster (or abdomen) to let each other know that there's food nearby. For nearly five decades, researchers thought the gastral drumming was a signal of hunger. These findings are the first evidence that wasps have complex communication about food, just as ants, bees, termites, and other social insects.

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The 11th species of an endemic Australian wasp genus

February 19, 2018, Flinders University

As well as an interest in all insects, Flinders biological sciences Ph.D. Ben Parslow has a fascination for wasps.

The focus of his doctorate research on the wasp genus Gasteruption has accidently has put him on the trail of describing the 11th species of an endemic Australian wasp genus.

It's estimated that there are three times the 10,140 or so described species of wasps still to be identified by scientists in Australia.

As such, he was most excited to come across a "really interesting looking wasp" in material loaned from a collection at the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory.

"These Hyptiogaster wasps are uncommonly collected and the material was loaned to myself hidden among other wasps I am borrowing for my Ph.D. research," he says.

"It was a strange looking wasp and as soon as I saw it, it piqued my interest.

"After checking it against the described material, we were sure it was something new."

With University of Adelaide mentor Dr. John Jennings, the "new" Hyptiogaster wasp has been described in a new paper in Zootaxa.

"This species is the first of the genus to be described from the Northern Territory," he says.

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What's really the point of wasps?

By Prof Adam HartUniversity of Gloucestershire

25 August 2017

A new citizen science survey aims to shed light on that fixture of summertime in the outdoors: the wasp. Though much maligned, these fascinating creatures perform a vital ecological role, say scientists.

The only thing more certain to spoil an August Bank Holiday weekend BBQ than a sudden cloudburst? The arrival of wasps.

At this time of the year, it can sometimes seem as if every outdoor activity is plagued by these yellow-and-black striped insects buzzing around your head and landing on your food and drink.

Wasps aren't just annoying - if you are unlucky, you might end up with a sharp reminder that wasps, like their close relatives the honeybee, pack a powerful sting. That combination of nuisance and pain makes wasps many people's least favourite animals.

Perhaps more than any other insect, wasps are badly in need of a change in public opinion. As well as having fascinating lives, they are extremely important in the environment and face problems similar to those of their cherished, but often no less annoying, cousins the bees.

As the summer approaches its end, many will wish for it, but a world without wasps would most certainly not be a better place.

Social types

The insects we most commonly identify as "wasps" are the social wasps. Social wasps (called yellow-jackets in some places) live in colonies consisting of hundreds or thousands of more-or-less sterile female workers and their much larger mother, the egg-laying queen.

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Sexually deceptive spider orchids fool wasps

May 5, 2017

Scientists at The University of Western Australia, in collaboration with researchers from The Australian National University, have uncovered the chemical compounds used by a species of spider orchid (Caladenia) to sexually seduce male wasp pollinators.

Pollination by sexual deception is an extremely specialised pollination strategy used by many Australian orchids. These orchid mimic the sex pheromone of a female wasp in order to lure the male to pollinate the flower by the false promise of sex.

Dr Bjorn Bohman from UWA's School of Molecular Sciences said the researchers were able to demonstrate for the first time the makeup of sulfur-containing chemicals the spider orchid uses to attract wasps for pollination.

"We demonstrated the spider orchid, attracts its pollinator with a unique system of chemicals never seen before in science," Dr Bohman said.

"The same chemicals mimic the sex pheromone of the wasp, and also represent the first occurrence of sulfur containing sex pheromones in the hymenoptera, the group of insects containing wasps, bees and ants."

"It is important for understanding the survival of plants to determine how they achieve pollination. So far there have been very few studies which pinpoint the chemicals involved in the communication between the flower and pollinator."

Spider orchids are a diverse collection of Australian orchids, comprising over 360 species. They use multiple pollination strategies including food-reward, food-deception and most bizarrely, sexual deception.

Until now the identity of the chemicals involved in sexual deception have remained elusive for any spider orchid species.

"Studies of the chemistry of this group, beyond revealing new natural chemicals, also offer a unique opportunity to understand the role of floral odors in the evolution of sexual deception as a pollination strategy," Dr Bohman said.

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In enemy garb: New explanation for wasp mimicry

Date: February 24, 2017

Source: University of Freiburg

The masquerade is almost perfect. Certain moths of the subfamily Arctiinae are marked with a yellow and black pattern. But these day-active insects have wasp waists and their antennae resemble those of wasps. Their transparent wings are folded in a wasp-like way. For more than 150 years there has been a plausible explanation for this type of imitation, which is commonly known as mimicry. It says that the moths -- just like many hoverflies and other insects -- imitate wasps in order to protect themselves from birds and other hostile predators. According to textbook wisdom, these voracious foes have learned from painful experience.

They have been stung by wasps and since then have avoided any animal that looks like one. In the scientific journal Ecology and Evolution, a University of Freiburg biologist, Prof. Dr. Michael Boppré and his team have now presented an additional hypothesis that goes beyond this traditional view. Their interpretation is that, above all, the moths' appearance deceives the very wasps they are mimicking.

As a rule, insects developing imperfect similarity to wasps is enough to keep learning predators at a distance. Yet the Arctiinae that Boppré observed during his biodiversity studies in South and Central America are different. The biologist says, "Especially when they are in flight, even for the trained eye it's nearly impossible to tell apart the examples from the mimics." That led Boppré to question why these Arctiinae have evolved this near-perfect imitation and what creatures they are trying to deceive. He says, "The answer -- wasps -- is stunningly simple." Wasps hunt other insects as food for their larvae. Yet wasps do not attack each other, even when they are out on hunting flights they do not differentiate the wasps they encounter as originating from their own or other nests. The moths, therefore, are imitating the wasps so that these predators will perceive them as members of the same species and not attack for that reason.

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The first long-haired ones: New wasp group proposed for five new species from India

Date: November 9, 2015

Source: Pensoft Publishers

Long accustomed to parasitising spider eggs, a large worldwide genus of wasps has as few as 24 known representatives in India. However, Dr. Veenakumari, ICAR-National Bureau of Agricultural Insect Resources, and her team have recently discovered five new species of these interesting wasps from different parts of the country. Because of their uniqueness and their strong resemblance to each other, as well to aid taxonomic studies they have been considered as constituting a group of their own. The discoveries and the suggestion of 'the first long-haired ones' species group are available in the open-access journal Deutsche Entomologische Zeitschrift.

Among the unique features that bring together the new five species, discovered by Drs. Veenakumari Kamalanathan, Prashanth Mohanraj and F. R. Khan, are the long hair-like structures along the margins of both of their wings. This is also the reason behind the authors' choice of naming the proposed group adikeshavus, meaning 'first one to have long hairs' in Sanskrit.

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Butterflies steal DNA of zombie wasps in natural genetic modification

Scientist have found DNA of wasps in butterflies showing that genes can pass between species

By Sarah Knapton, Science Editor

7:00PM BST 17 Sep 2015

Butterflies 'steal’ the genes of wasps to make them more resistant to disease , scientists have found, in first evidence of natural genetic modification in the animal kingdom.

Although campaigners have long warned of the dangers of GM, it appears that some animals are already altering their own genomes, naturally selecting beneficial virus-fighting DNA from other creatures.

Spanish and French researchers discovered that genes which should only occur in parasitic wasps are present in the genetic makeup of many butterflies including Monarchs.

Monarchs and other butterflies and moths are targeted by parasitic braconid wasps who lay their eggs inside caterpillars and inject a virus to squash the caterpillar’s immune response which would usually drive out the invaders.

Bracoviruses work by merging with the DNA of their hosts, altering gene expression. They even alter the brains of caterpillars, effectively turning them into zombies, so that when the wasp larvae emerge from their hosts the caterpillar spins them a protective cocoon and becomes a bodyguard, fighting off other insects who would do them harm.

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Specialization: Choosy wasps survive better, study shows

Date:

August 27, 2014

Source:

Université de Fribourg

Summary:

Specialized parasitic wasps, such as those using only a few host species, have a greater chance of establishing stable populations than generalist species, a new study shows. These results help with understanding the appearance of specialists in the history of animal evolution and could improve the effectiveness of biological control programs against insect pests.

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Winchester woman finds 3ft wasp nest on bed

27 August 2014 Last updated at 14:44

The wasps had chewed through the pillows and the mattress of the bed in order to make their nest larger

A pest controller said he took on "the biggest job of his career" when he was called to deal with a nest of more than 5,000 wasps.

John Birkett, of Longwood Services Pest Control, said removing the 3ft (91cm) nest from a bed in Winchester was his most unusual job in 45 years.

He said it would have been "extremely dangerous" if the homeowner had tried to remove it herself.

"I just stood back in amazement," Mr Birkett said.

The nest was discovered by a woman at her house in St Cross, in an unused spare room, where a small window had been left open.

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Wasps use ancient aggression genes to create social groups

Date:

February 10, 2014

Source:

Penn State

Summary:

Aggression-causing genes appeared early in animal evolution and have maintained their roles for millions of years and across many species, even though animal aggression today varies widely from territorial fighting to setting up social hierarchies, according to researchers.

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Citizen science charts horse chestnut tree pest spread

By Mark Kinver

Environment reporter, BBC News

A citizen science study, involving more than 3,500 people, has revealed the spread and establishment of the horse chestnut leaf-miner in the UK.

It also suggests that a native species of wasp that preys on the tiny insect will not be able to curb its impact.

A tree infested with the caterpillars of the non-native moth tunnel through leaves, causing them to turn autumnal brown, even in the middle of summer.

The study and its findings have been published in the journal PLoS One.

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Worker Wasps Grow Visual Brains, Queens Stay in Dark

Jan. 6, 2014 — A queen in a paperwasp colony largely stays in the dark. The worker wasps, who fly outside to seek food and building materials, see much more of the world around them. A new study indicates that the brain regions involved in sensory perception also develop differently in these castes, according to the different behavioral reliance on the senses. The study is published in Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology.

"The wasps in different castes within a colony don't differ much genetically. The differences we see show the signature of the environment on brain development," said Sean O'Donnell, PhD, a professor in Drexel University's College of Arts and Sciences who led the study.

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Fossils Clarify the Origins of Wasps and Their Kin: Alderfly Ancestors, Snakefly Cousins

Dec. 4, 2013 — Wasps, bees, ants and relatives comprise the megadiverse insect order Hymenoptera, the third most speciose animal group on Earth, far surpassing the number of known vertebrate species. All the four most diverse orders of animals (beetles, butterflies, wasps, and true flies) belong to the group of insects with complete metamorphosis, i.e. having a dormant pupa, jointly known as Holometabola. Other holometabolans are lacewings, alderflies, dobsonflies, snakeflies, scorpionflies, fleas, and caddisflies. Hymenopterans are currently regarded as a very old lineage, which had been the first to separate from the holometabolan stem, the view supported by molecular evidence.

Eighty years ago the Russian entomologist Andrey Martynov -- well known for naming the two major divisions of winged insects Palaeoptera and Neoptera, stressing the importance of the wing folding pattern for insect evolution -- suggested that wasps had arisen from snakefly-like ancestors.

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Two New Beautiful Wasp Species of the Rare Genus Abernessia

Nov. 25, 2013 — Two new beautiful wasp species are added to the rare pompilid genus Abernessia, which now contains a total of only four known species. The two new species A. prima and A. capixaba are believed to be endemic for Brazil alongside the rest of the representatives of the genus. Both wasps are distinguished by the large size (almost 3cm in length) and the beautiful black color with metallic shine typical for the family. The study was published in the open access journal ZooKeys.

The enigmatic genus Abernessia is part of the spider wasp family Pompilidae. Spider wasps take their name from the preference of the representatives to parasitize spiders. The females paralyze the prey by stinging it, which is then put in a specifically built nest. The female then lays a single egg on the abdomen of the spider and bury it carefully marking any signs that might give away the nest.

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Evolutionary Question Answered: Ants More Closely Related to Bees Than to Most Wasps

Oct. 8, 2013 — Ants and bees are surprisingly more genetically related to each other than they are to social wasps such as yellow jackets and paper wasps, a team of University of California, Davis, scientists has discovered. The groundbreaking research is available online and will be published Oct. 21 in the print version of the journal Current Biology.

Using state-of-the-art genome sequencing and bioinformatics, the researchers resolved a long-standing, unanswered evolutionary question. Scientists previously thought that ants and bees were more distantly related, with ants being closer to certain parasitoid wasps.

Ants, bees and stinging wasps all belong to the aculeate (stinging) Hymenoptera clade -- the insect group in which social behavior is most extensively developed, said senior author and ant specialist Phil Ward, professor of entomology at UC Davis.

"Despite great interest in the ecology and behavior of these insects, their evolutionary relationships have never been fully clarified. In particular, it has been uncertain how ants -- the world's most successful social insects -- are related to bees and wasps," Ward said. "We were able to resolve this question by employing next-generation sequencing technology and advances in bioinformatics. This phylogeny, or evolutionary tree, provides a new framework for understanding the evolution of nesting, feeding and social behavior in Hymenoptera."

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DRUNK WASPS: Just When You Thought They Couldn't Get Worse

Humanity's worst fear has been realized: wasps are getting drunk. And they're not fun drunks, either.

The British Red Cross is warning citizens of a record number of wasps in the UK that are out of a job. That is, their queens are fully supplied with nectar, leaving worker wasps to do nothing but laze around and drink fermenting fruit.

The Independent reported that as winter approaches, wasps are becoming bolder and angrier as they get older. And now these retirees are getting wasted and stinging with more frequency.

“It’s hilarious that, now worker wasps have finished their life's work, all they are doing now is feasting on fermented fruit and getting ‘drunk,’" Joe Mulligan, head of first aid at the British Red Cross, says in a news release.

"Hilarious" is not the word we'd use. "A threat to the well-being of everything good in the world" seems a more appropriate line.

A recent video of a wasp literally tearing a bee in half recently made waves online, and that wasp was sober. We can't even imagine what kind of atrocities this new breed of angry old drunks will commit. 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/07/drunk-wasps-england-britain_n_3885800.html?utm_hp_ref=weird-news

Who, what, why: Where are all the wasps?

It's summer, the sun is shining across the UK, but there don't seem to be many wasps around. Why?

Summer has finally arrived and people have decamped to gardens, beaches and parks en masse. But something seems to be missing this year. By July people are usually swatting wasps away from picnics, barbecues and ice creams at an annoying rate.

Wasps usually start appearing in the UK around the beginning of May, depending on the species. So why are there so few of them around?

Numbers are low so far this year because of a huge decline in the wasp population in 2012, say experts. That drop was the result of fluctuating temperatures earlier in the year.

No quantitative data is available for wasp numbers in the UK. Unlike butterflies and bees, there is no official recording scheme, but many experts working in the fields of entomology, biodiversity and conservation say numbers appear to be significantly down.

The answer

A warm spell in February 2012 brought queens out of hibernation early. Many then died when the weather got cold again.

Fewer colonies were established resulting in fewer wasps this year so far

An unseasonal spell of good weather in late February last year is being blamed. It resulted in mated queen wasps coming out of hibernation early, experts say. Temperatures soon dropped again and many of them died because of a lack of food.

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