Color is necessary for face discrimination in the Northern paper wasp, Polistes fuscatus.

Visual individual recognition requires animals to distinguish among conspecifics based on appearance. Though visual individual recognition has been reported in a range of taxa including primates, birds, and insects, the features that animals require to discriminate between individuals are not well understood. Northern paper wasp females, Polistes fuscatus, possess individually distinctive color patterns on their faces, which mediate individual recognition.

Dynamic neurogenomic responses to social interactions and dominance outcomes in female paper wasps.

Social interactions have large effects on individual physiology and fitness. In the immediate sense, social stimuli are often highly salient and engaging. Over longer time scales, competitive interactions often lead to distinct social ranks and differences in physiology and behavior.

Age and social experience induced plasticity across brain regions of the paper wasp .

Developmental studies of brain volumes can reveal which portions of neural circuits are sensitive to environmental inputs. In social insects, differences in relative investment across brain regions emerge as behavioural repertoires change during ontogeny or as a result of experience. Here, we test the effects of maturation and social experience on morphological brain development in paper wasps focusing on brain regions involved in visual and olfactory processing.