Immune response in paper wasp workers: Task matters more than age

This dataset accompanies the research article: Prato, A., Santos, E. F., Ferreira, H. M., Oi, C. A., do Nascimento, F. S., Rantala, M. J., Krams, I., & de Souza, A. R. (2024). “Immune response in paper wasp workers: Task matters more than age.” Journal of Insect Physiology, 154, 104629. This dataset contains the individual-level data and R code used to investigate how worker task and age influence the melanotic encapsulation immune response in the social paper wasp Polybia paulista. The study comprises three complementary experiments. The first experiment examined field workers collected from natural colonies. Individuals were classified according to behavioural task as cell inspectors or nurses, guards, or foragers. Relative worker age was estimated from the coloration of the transverse apodeme on the fifth sternite. Immune response was quantified by inserting a nylon filament into the body cavity and measuring the darkness of the melanized filament after 24 hours. The second experiment examined laboratory-reared workers of known absolute age that were prevented from developing normal behavioural specialization. These data were used to test whether melanotic encapsulation changes with age independently of worker task. The third experiment used marked workers of known age to test whether apodeme coloration provides a reliable proxy for worker age. The deposited files include raw and processed datasets, an Excel workbook containing the field and laboratory measurements, and an R script used to produce the statistical analyses and figures. The analyses include linear models, linear mixed-effects models, ANOVA, Tukey and estimated-marginal-means comparisons, and graphical representations of age, task and immune response.