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Abstract

Vespula germanica (F.) (Hymenoptera: Vespidae) is a highly invasive social wasp that exhibits a rich behavioral repertoire in which learning and memory play a fundamental role in foraging. The learning abilities of these wasps were analyzed while relocating a food source and whether V. germanica foragers are capable of discriminating between different orientation patterns and generalizing their choice to a new pattern. Foraging wasps were trained to associate two different stripe orientation patterns with their respective food locations. Their response to a novel configuration that maintained the orientation of one of the learned patterns but differed in other aspects (e.g. width of stripes) was then evaluated. The results support the hypothesis that V. germanica wasps are able to associate a particular oriented pattern with the location of a feeder and to generalize their choice to a new pattern, which differed in quality, but presented the same orientation.

Keywords: learning; social wasps; visual patterns

Correspondence: ^a* paodadamo@hotmail.com, ^b mariana.lozada@gmail.com, *Corresponding author

Editor: Todd Shelly was Editor of this paper

Received: 17 June 2010 | Accepted: 24 October 2011 | Published: 18 August 2011

Copyright: This is an open access paper. We use the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license that permits unrestricted use, provided that the paper is properly attributed.  

ISSN: 1536-2442 | Volume 11, Number 103

D’Adamo P, Lozada M. 2011. Cognitive plasticity in foraging Vespula germanica wasps. Journal of Insect Science 11:103 available online: insectscience.org/11.103