Resource limitation, intragroup aggression, and brain neuropeptide expression in a social wasp

1. Nourishment can have profound effects on social behavior, including aggressive interactions between individuals. However, how nutritional resource availability and limitation affects intraspecific aggression remains somewhat contested. The prevailing theoretical and empirical understanding is that when nutritional resources are limited, inter-individual competition and aggression will increase. However, findings from several social animals suggest that limited nutrition can lead to increased cooperation, including by a reduction in inter-individual aggression.

2. We suggest that in social insect colonies, where nourishment is often important in determining differences between the reproductive and non-reproductive worker behavioral castes, the link between an individual’s nourishment and their future reproductive potential may be a key missing element of models that predict how nutritional resource availability affects inter-individual aggression.

3. We investigated how nourishm...