Data from: The geographic structure of selection on a coevolving interaction between social parasitic wasps and their hosts hampers social evolution

Social parasites exploit societies, rather than organisms, and rear their brood in social insect colonies at the expense of their hosts, triggering a coevolutionary process that may affect host social structure. The resulting coevolutionary trajectories may be further altered by selection imposed by predators, which exploit the abundant resources concentrated in these nests. Here, we show that geographic differences in selection imposed by predators affects the structure of selection on coevolving hosts and their social parasites. In a multi-year study, we monitored the fate of the annual breeding attempts of the solitary-founding females of Polistes biglumis social wasps in four geographically distinct populations that varied in levels of attack by the congeneric social parasite, P. atrimandibularis. Foundress fitness depended mostly on whether, during the long founding phase, a colony was invaded by social parasites or attacked by predators. Foundresses from each population differed in morphological traits and reproductive tactics that were consistent with selection imposed by their natural enemies and in ways that may affect host sociality. In turn, parasite traits were consistent with selection imposed locally by hosts, implying a geographic mosaic of coevolution in this brood parasitic interaction.社会寄生虫（social parasites）并非以单个生物体为利用对象，而是依托社会群体生存；它们会在社会性昆虫的巢穴内抚育子代，以牺牲寄主群体为代价，由此触发一场可能改变寄主社会结构的共进化（coevolution）过程。由此产生的共进化轨迹，还可能因捕食者施加的选择压力而进一步发生改变——捕食者会利用这些巢穴中富集的大量资源。本研究表明，捕食者施加的选择压力存在地理差异，这种差异会影响共进化寄主及其社会寄生虫所承受的选择压力的结构。在一项为期多年的研究中，我们对四个地理隔离种群的大唇马蜂（Polistes biglumis）单建巢雌蜂的年度繁殖尝试结局进行了监测；这些种群受到同属社会寄生虫宽颚马蜂（P. atrimandibularis）的攻击程度各不相同。建巢雌蜂的进化适合度主要取决于，在漫长的建巢阶段，其巢穴是否遭到社会寄生虫入侵或捕食者袭击。各个种群的建巢雌蜂在形态特征与繁殖策略上存在差异，这些差异与其天敌施加的选择压力相匹配，且这些差异可能会对寄主的社会性产生影响。反过来，寄生虫的性状也与其当地寄主施加的选择压力相契合，这表明该育雏寄生互作系统中存在共进化地理镶嵌（geographic mosaic of coevolution）现象。