Periodic Reporting for period 2 - WaspCLIM (A continental-scale test of the climate hypothesis for the evolution of altruism in insects)
Reporting period: 2023-01-01 to 2023-12-31
1. What is the problem being addressed?
The living world is ruthlessly competitive, so why does cooperation evolve between animals? Untangling this enigma is among the great questions of biology. Recently, the debate has focused on the roles played by climatic variation. Does cooperation evolve in different climates in different ways and for different reasons? If we can identify the links between climate and cooperation, we may significantly advance our understanding of the evolution of animal behaviour.
Answering this question requires a careful choice of study species. First, it must straddle a wide range of climates. Second, it must be experimentally tractable. Third, it should be a generalisable model for the evolution of cooperation. Working in Cameroon and South Africa, this MSCA fellowship focused on a strong system: the social wasp Belonogaster juncea. These wasps live across most of sub-Saharan Africa, from tropical rainforests to arid savannah, offering a window into social evolution under different climatic regimes. They live strikingly different lives under different climates: at temperate latitudes, for instance, they must hibernate for several months each year, with major knock-on effects for the cycle of cooperative nest building; in the tropics, by contrast, they do not hibernate. Moreover, they are regarded as living models for early stages in the evolution of 'eusociality'.
2. Why is it important for society?
Social evolution deals with some of the most fundamental questions about the living world. Cooperation created the world around us - from the rise of the first genomes, cells, and multicellular organisms to our own species' journey from the savanna to complex societies of millions. Relating cooperation to climate is a central objective in the field, because it promises to shed light on the environmental factors that drive social evolution.
Additionally, understanding the ecology, behaviour, and biodiversity of the social insects - the 'little things that run the world' - is an urgent objective in a time of global environmental change. Africa's Belonogaster wasps stretch across most of the continent, and likely play key roles as generalist predators. Moreover, they have recently started to receive attention as potential allies in the fight against invasive crop pests in subsistence farming. A prerequisite, however, is understanding how these animals live - the aim of this project.
Finally, this fellowship has conducted outreach in four countries (the UK, US, South Africa, and Cameroon), aimed at sharing the excitement and wonder of biodiversity with diverse communities.
3. What are the overall objectives?
The overall objectives of WaspClim are to contribute to a new understanding of the links between climate and cooperation, conduct outreach to the wider public, and develop Belonogaster wasps as a powerful study system for exploring social evolution over climatic gradients.
The living world is ruthlessly competitive, so why does cooperation evolve between animals? Untangling this enigma is among the great questions of biology. Recently, the debate has focused on the roles played by climatic variation. Does cooperation evolve in different climates in different ways and for different reasons? If we can identify the links between climate and cooperation, we may significantly advance our understanding of the evolution of animal behaviour.
Answering this question requires a careful choice of study species. First, it must straddle a wide range of climates. Second, it must be experimentally tractable. Third, it should be a generalisable model for the evolution of cooperation. Working in Cameroon and South Africa, this MSCA fellowship focused on a strong system: the social wasp Belonogaster juncea. These wasps live across most of sub-Saharan Africa, from tropical rainforests to arid savannah, offering a window into social evolution under different climatic regimes. They live strikingly different lives under different climates: at temperate latitudes, for instance, they must hibernate for several months each year, with major knock-on effects for the cycle of cooperative nest building; in the tropics, by contrast, they do not hibernate. Moreover, they are regarded as living models for early stages in the evolution of 'eusociality'.
2. Why is it important for society?
Social evolution deals with some of the most fundamental questions about the living world. Cooperation created the world around us - from the rise of the first genomes, cells, and multicellular organisms to our own species' journey from the savanna to complex societies of millions. Relating cooperation to climate is a central objective in the field, because it promises to shed light on the environmental factors that drive social evolution.
Additionally, understanding the ecology, behaviour, and biodiversity of the social insects - the 'little things that run the world' - is an urgent objective in a time of global environmental change. Africa's Belonogaster wasps stretch across most of the continent, and likely play key roles as generalist predators. Moreover, they have recently started to receive attention as potential allies in the fight against invasive crop pests in subsistence farming. A prerequisite, however, is understanding how these animals live - the aim of this project.
Finally, this fellowship has conducted outreach in four countries (the UK, US, South Africa, and Cameroon), aimed at sharing the excitement and wonder of biodiversity with diverse communities.
3. What are the overall objectives?
The overall objectives of WaspClim are to contribute to a new understanding of the links between climate and cooperation, conduct outreach to the wider public, and develop Belonogaster wasps as a powerful study system for exploring social evolution over climatic gradients.
WaspClim used fieldwork in Cameroon and South Africa, collecting behavioural, morphological, mass spectrometry, and genomics data, in collaboration with Professor Maurice Tindo (University of Douala), Dr Paul Serge Masse (University of Yaounde 1), Professor Christian Park (University of Pretoria), and Dr Quentin Guignard (University of Pretoria). The project conducted experiments and genetic sampling across multiple populations, including Congo Basin forests and semi-arid habitats, replicating methods in parallel across climates. Work in South Africa centred on the Magaliesberg Biosphere Reserve, with the generous support of Gerry Comninos and local landowners and farmers.
The MSCA outgoing phase was in New York, in Professor Dustin Rubenstein's lab at Columbia University. Work in New York involved genomic library preparation and specimen dissection, as well as theoretical modelling and the collation of interspecific data, and teaching on Columbia's 3-week field course in savanna ecology in Kenya. As a Junior Fellow of the Simons Society of Fellows (a society of scientists in New York), the MSCA fellow also benefitted from regular meetings with colleagues across diverse fields from astrophysics to neuroscience.
The return phase was in Bristol, in the lab of Professor Andrew Radford at the School of Biological Sciences, University of Bristol. Work at Bristol involved developing a detailed individual-based simulation for the evolution of cooperation in Belonogaster and similar organisms across climatic gradients, continued fieldwork in Cameroon, and bioinformatics analysis of the fieldwork data. The simulation modelling (using the high-performance computing facilities of Bristol's Advanced Computing Research Centre) focused on developing a biologically realistic model, comprising spatially-explicit and sex-biased dispersal, haplodiploid inheritance, condition-dependence, and strategic choices by individual wasps.
The main results achieved so far include: (1) setting up field sites and strong collaborations across a very large latitudinal gradient, which will form the basis for an ambitious programme of ongoing work on Africa's social wasps; (2) effective outreach in evolution and ecology to diverse communities across four countries; and (3) clarifying in detail the climatic factors shaping wasp demography, through field experiment, population genetics, and biologically-realistic evolutionary simulations, results which will be available to the scientific community through forthcoming papers. This work has highlighted the foundational importance of kin selection, whilst documenting how demographic factors can shape relatedness and social opportunity for individual actors.
The project has involved outreach and engagement. This included talks for eco-guard trainees in Cameroon, students in Yaounde, local farmers and landowners in Magaliesberg, and high school teachers in New York City. Moreover, the project sought to provide strong training opportunities for field assistants; as a result of WaspClim, one field assistant from Cameroon is now conducting a Commonwealth Scholarship PhD on Belonogaster wasps in the UK, for which the MSCA fellow is a cosupervisor.
The MSCA outgoing phase was in New York, in Professor Dustin Rubenstein's lab at Columbia University. Work in New York involved genomic library preparation and specimen dissection, as well as theoretical modelling and the collation of interspecific data, and teaching on Columbia's 3-week field course in savanna ecology in Kenya. As a Junior Fellow of the Simons Society of Fellows (a society of scientists in New York), the MSCA fellow also benefitted from regular meetings with colleagues across diverse fields from astrophysics to neuroscience.
The return phase was in Bristol, in the lab of Professor Andrew Radford at the School of Biological Sciences, University of Bristol. Work at Bristol involved developing a detailed individual-based simulation for the evolution of cooperation in Belonogaster and similar organisms across climatic gradients, continued fieldwork in Cameroon, and bioinformatics analysis of the fieldwork data. The simulation modelling (using the high-performance computing facilities of Bristol's Advanced Computing Research Centre) focused on developing a biologically realistic model, comprising spatially-explicit and sex-biased dispersal, haplodiploid inheritance, condition-dependence, and strategic choices by individual wasps.
The main results achieved so far include: (1) setting up field sites and strong collaborations across a very large latitudinal gradient, which will form the basis for an ambitious programme of ongoing work on Africa's social wasps; (2) effective outreach in evolution and ecology to diverse communities across four countries; and (3) clarifying in detail the climatic factors shaping wasp demography, through field experiment, population genetics, and biologically-realistic evolutionary simulations, results which will be available to the scientific community through forthcoming papers. This work has highlighted the foundational importance of kin selection, whilst documenting how demographic factors can shape relatedness and social opportunity for individual actors.
The project has involved outreach and engagement. This included talks for eco-guard trainees in Cameroon, students in Yaounde, local farmers and landowners in Magaliesberg, and high school teachers in New York City. Moreover, the project sought to provide strong training opportunities for field assistants; as a result of WaspClim, one field assistant from Cameroon is now conducting a Commonwealth Scholarship PhD on Belonogaster wasps in the UK, for which the MSCA fellow is a cosupervisor.
This MSCA project has pushed the frontiers of research on social wasp evolution by focusing on climatic factors at a large scale. Using field behavioural manipulations, population genetics, and computational modelling, the project has successfully illuminated key aspects of social evolution in Belonogaster, and will now form the springboard for ongoing research on this fascinating genus. It has also involved substantial outreach to the wider public, aiming to share a sense of wonder at biodiversity, whilst connecting scientists across the UK, USA, Cameroon, and South Africa to form enduring collaborations. It has led to training and teaching benefits for students in Cameroon, the US, and the UK, and led to the development of a new Commonwealth Scholarship PhD project exploring the potential applications of Belonogaster wasps to African food security.
The MSCA fellowship has enabled the fellow to develop broad skills with a range of research techniques from field experiments to bioinformatics. As a lecturer at the University of Bristol, the MSCA fellow will build on the strong foundations established by this MSCA project, expanding the scope of research on social wasps in Africa and elsewhere to understand the ultimate and proximate drivers of cooperation.
The MSCA fellowship has enabled the fellow to develop broad skills with a range of research techniques from field experiments to bioinformatics. As a lecturer at the University of Bristol, the MSCA fellow will build on the strong foundations established by this MSCA project, expanding the scope of research on social wasps in Africa and elsewhere to understand the ultimate and proximate drivers of cooperation.