Animal Diversity Web

Ge­o­graphic Range

Eu­ro­pean paper wasps are na­tive to the Palearc­tic Re­gion around the Mediter­ranean, north­ern Africa, south­ern Eu­rope, the Mid­dle East, and east­ern China. They were in­tro­duced to the Nearc­tic Re­gion of North Amer­ica in the 1970s and 1980s. Al­though ini­tially found pri­mar­ily on the east coast of the United States, they have since spread into the Mid­west and re­cently to­wards the west­ern and south­west­ern United States. Eu­ro­pean paper wasps were in­tro­duced to Canada, in­clud­ing On­tario, Nova Sco­tia, and British Co­lum­bia in the 1990’s. They have also been in­tro­duced to Chile and Ar­gentina in the Neotrop­i­cal Re­gion as well as west­ern Aus­tralia in the Aus­tralian Re­gion. (Cervo, et al., 2000; Ja­cobs, 2011)

• Biogeographic Regions
• nearctic
  • introduced
• palearctic
  • native
• neotropical
  • introduced
• australian
  • introduced

Habi­tat

Eu­ro­pean paper wasps live in tem­per­ate and ter­res­trial habi­tats in­clud­ing chap­ar­ral, for­est and grass­land bio­mes. They re­side in urban, sub­ur­ban, and agri­cul­tural lo­ca­tions. They tend to re­side close to human civ­i­liza­tion be­cause they nest in human struc­tures. They also live in forests and on plants where they can feed and nest. When nest­ing, they choose spaces cre­ated by farm ma­chin­ery and recre­ational struc­tures. Dur­ing win­ter, im­preg­nated queens re­side in pro­tected lo­ca­tions such as within house walls or in hol­low trees. These fe­males then cre­ate nests in these lo­ca­tions or nearby at the be­gin­ning of spring. (Buck, et al., Feb­ru­ary 19, 2008; Ja­cobs, 2011; Rusina, et al., 2011)

• Habitat Regions
• temperate
• terrestrial

• Terrestrial Biomes
• savanna or grassland
• chaparral
• forest

• Other Habitat Features
• urban
• suburban
• agricultural

Phys­i­cal De­scrip­tion

Eu­ro­pean paper wasps are black wasps with yel­low mark­ings in­clud­ing rings along the ab­domen and spots lo­cated in var­i­ous lo­ca­tions on the clu­peus (face) and ab­domen, as­so­ci­ated with gen­der and pos­si­bly dom­i­nance. Dif­fer­ences in the clypeal col­oration pat­terns may sug­gest ag­gres­sion and sta­tus lev­els. Some in­di­vid­u­als have one spot on their clypeus, and a greater quan­tity of black on the clypeus may sug­gest dom­i­nance and also in­di­cate phys­i­cal size. The fla­gella (an­ten­nae) are bright red­dish-or­ange. (Buck, et al., 2008a; Buck, et al., 2008b; Buck, et al., Feb­ru­ary 19, 2008; Green and Field, 2010)

Eu­ro­pean paper wasps are smaller than the na­tive North­ern paper wasps and mea­sure 2.0 cm in length on av­er­age. They are bi­lat­er­ally sym­met­ri­cal, and their bod­ies are made up of tag­mata in­clud­ing a head, tho­rax, and ab­domen, with a thin con­stric­tion be­tween the tho­rax and ab­domen. They have six legs, a pair of an­tenna, and a pair of wings. There is an in­den­ta­tion lo­cated in the meso­pleu­ron, as well as ridg­ing along the propodeum (the first ab­dom­i­nal seg­ment that is fused to the tho­rax). Com­pared to other species in their genus (Polistes), Eu­ro­pean paper wasps are known to fly with their hind legs po­si­tioned slightly below their body. (Buck, et al., 2008a; Buck, et al., Feb­ru­ary 19, 2008; Cran­shaw, 2008)

Col­oration and size ex­hibit sex­ual di­mor­phism. The ven­tral sur­face is black in fe­males and yel­low in males. Fe­males tend to be larger than males. Fe­male forewing length ranges from 9.5 to 13.0 mm, whereas males' forewings range from 8.5 to 12.0 mm. (Buck, et al., 2008a; Buck, et al., 2008b)

• Other Physical Features
• ectothermic
• bilateral symmetry

• Sexual Dimorphism
• female larger
• sexes colored or patterned differently

• Average length

  2.0 cm

  0.79 in

• Range wingspan

  8.5 to 13.0 mm

  0.33 to 0.51 in

De­vel­op­ment

Meta­mor­pho­sis takes place as eggs de­velop into lar­vae, which are fed by both the queen and worker wasps that col­lect food. The lar­vae pu­pate and then trans­form into adults. If the tem­per­a­ture and food con­di­tions are op­ti­mal, the eggs de­velop into adults in 40 days. Vi­bra­tions caused by adult Eu­ro­pean paper wasps in­flu­ences whether the de­vel­op­ing lar­vae be­come work­ers or founders. This vi­bra­tion is caused by an­ten­nae drum­ming which bio­chem­i­cally af­fects the lar­vae and al­ters gene ex­pres­sion in the lar­val stage. (Surya­narayanan, et al., 2011)

Ju­ve­nile Hor­mone (JH) is found in many Polistes species and func­tions in reg­u­lat­ing de­vel­op­ment, di­a­pause, and re­pro­duc­tion. Whereas in other species JH re­spon­sive­ness may dif­fer be­tween foundresses and work­ers, in Eu­ro­pean paper wasps, JH re­spon­sive­ness is con­di­tion-de­pen­dent and there are no clear dif­fer­ences in re­spon­sive­ness be­tween foundresses and work­ers. (Tib­betts, et al., 2011)

• Development - Life Cycle
• metamorphosis

Re­pro­duc­tion

Within colonies of Eu­ro­pean paper wasps, one queen gen­er­ally mates with mul­ti­ple males. Res­i­dent males often cop­u­late with the fe­male more often than tran­sient males. Res­i­dent males de­fend one land­mark for a few con­sec­u­tive days, while tran­sient males may fly be­tween mul­ti­ple land­marks. Their pre­ferred land­marks are large trees. They may mark their leaf and stem perches by rub­bing their legs and last ster­n­ite (com­po­nent of the ster­num on the ven­tral por­tion of the ab­domen) on them. In choos­ing males, a queen flies over the dif­fer­ent males' ter­ri­to­ries and tends to choose a res­i­dent male be­cause res­i­dence often sug­gests that a male is large, ag­gres­sive, and sex­u­ally ac­tive. Once the lar­vae de­velop, the work­ers as­sist the foundress in pro­vid­ing food for the lar­vae through co­op­er­a­tive breed­ing. (Beani and Turil­lazzi, 1987; Beani, et al., 1992)

Queen Eu­ro­pean paper wasps are more likely to cop­u­late with non-nest­mate males than nest­mate males. On the con­trary, males do not dis­crim­i­nate be­tween nest­mate and non-nest­mate fe­males. Fe­males re­ject a sig­nif­i­cant num­ber of cop­u­la­tion ef­forts by males. Fe­males are known to mate with sev­eral males, thus sug­gest­ing a form of post-cop­u­la­tory choice in the fe­male. (Liebert, et al., 2010)

• Mating System
• polyandrous
• cooperative breeder
• eusocial

Eu­ro­pean paper wasps are dioe­cious and cop­u­late through in­ter­nal sex­ual re­pro­duc­tion. Fe­males are iteroparous and mate through­out the spring, cre­at­ing nu­mer­ous broods. In the fall, re­pro­duc­tive fe­males mate one final time and find a place to take shel­ter and hi­ber­nate for the win­ter. They store sperm post-cop­u­la­tion at the end of the sea­son which helps to delay fer­til­iza­tion until the spring. They re­side in spaces within houses, in walls, and out­doors. In April and May, they es­tab­lish nests typ­i­cally in dark, pro­tected lo­ca­tions. They often choose man-made struc­tures to build nests, and also pro­tec­tive rocks. Eu­ro­pean paper wasps nest in man-made struc­tures more often than north­ern paper wasps (Polistes fus­ca­tus). Fe­male wasps some­times nest alone with­out other fe­male foundresses. Al­ter­na­tively, fe­males choose to nest with other fer­til­ized fe­males and cre­ate mul­ti­ple-foundress nest­ing sites. Oc­ca­sion­ally, fe­males choose to wait in their win­ter hi­ber­na­tion lo­ca­tion until later in the sea­son, when they can take over a nest that has been aban­doned by an­other foundress. Foundresses at­tach their paper nests, con­structed from wood fibers and paper, to wood, metal, or rock. At the be­gin­ning of the sea­son, the fer­til­ized fe­male lays eggs within the few paper cells of the nest. Over the course of the sea­son, worker wasps help to re­con­struct and in­crease the size of the nest. (Cran­shaw, 2008; Zanette and Field, 2011)

Fe­males lay eggs within cells of the nest that hatch, pu­pate, and de­velop into adults in 3 to 4 weeks after they are laid. The eggs hatch into lar­vae in 3 to 5 days, and the queen wasp feeds them mas­ti­cated cater­pil­lars. The lar­vae cre­ate a silk cap over the top of a nest cell and pu­pate within this closed nest sec­tion. Within 3 to 4 weeks, the pupal wasps de­velop into full-sized adults. As adult wasps de­velop, they be­come work­ers within the colony and are sub­or­di­nate to the fe­male queen. In the sum­mer and later part of the sea­son, sev­eral dozen wasps com­prise the colony. These worker wasps help the foundress gather re­sources to feed fu­ture lar­vae and con­struct suf­fi­cient nest space for them. Some of the work­ers be­come re­pro­duc­tive males and fe­males to­wards the end of the sea­son. These wasps re­pro­duce, but fer­til­ized fe­males are the only wasps to sur­vive the win­ter into the next sea­son. (Cran­shaw, 2008)

• Key Reproductive Features
• iteroparous
• seasonal breeding
• gonochoric/gonochoristic/dioecious (sexes separate)
• sexual
• fertilization
  • internal
• oviparous
• sperm-storing
• delayed fertilization

• Breeding interval

  European paper wasps breed numerous times each year, and have numerous broods.

• Breeding season

  European paper wasps typically mate in spring, summer and fall.

• Average gestation period

  3-5 days

Fe­male Eu­ro­pean paper wasps pro­tect and pro­vi­sion their off­spring from be­fore they are fer­til­ized until the wean­ing process. Eggs de­velop in their bod­ies until there is a nest to lay them in. Once the eggs hatch, the foundress feeds the lar­vae chewed up in­sects like cater­pil­lars. The first brood of the sea­son be­come worker wasps that help to con­struct the nest and col­lect food for the fol­low­ing broods. The queen fo­cuses her en­ergy on lay­ing more eggs while the work­ers pro­vide the nec­es­sary de­fense and re­sources for the colony. (Bartelt, 2011)

• Parental Investment
• female parental care
• pre-fertilization
  • provisioning
  • protecting
    • female
• pre-hatching/birth
  • provisioning
    • female
  • protecting
    • female
• pre-weaning/fledging
  • provisioning
    • female
  • protecting
    • female
• post-independence association with parents

Lifes­pan/Longevity

The lifes­pan of the queen wasp is longer than worker be­cause work­ers pro­tect the queen and she hi­ber­nates dur­ing the win­ter. Colonies with one or more queens are founded in late March or April. These ini­tially start with the sin­gle or mul­ti­ple foundresses that were fer­til­ized in the fall. They lay their eggs, which even­tu­ally de­velop into the first set of work­ers of the sea­son. Nei­ther males nor non-re­pro­duc­tive fe­males sur­vive the win­ter; their lifes­pan is less than a year. They only sur­vive the spring, sum­mer, and fall sea­sons. Re­pro­duc­tive fe­males may sur­vive mul­ti­ple sea­sons. (Cran­shaw, 2008; Strass­mann, et al., 2004)

Be­hav­ior

Eu­ro­pean paper wasps are mo­bile and move by fly­ing and walk­ing. They are so­cial and live in colonies that have dom­i­nance hi­er­ar­chies be­tween the queen and the work­ers, in­clud­ing hi­er­ar­chies within the work­ing wasps. Among the work­ers, four typ­i­cal be­hav­iors occur. These in­clude: gen­eral move­ment and be­hav­ior on the nest, search­ing for prey, fur­ther con­struc­tion of the nest, and sit­ting on the nest. Eu­ro­pean paper wasps are di­ur­nal and re­turn to the nest for the night. (Kar­sai, et al., 1996; Ther­aulaz, et al., 1990)

Since ag­gres­sive be­hav­iors are costly, hav­ing a dis­tinc­tive fa­cial phe­no­type for clypeal col­oration may de­crease the level of com­pe­ti­tion from other wasps. Eu­ro­pean paper wasps may be more likely to chal­lenge a weaker rival based on its clypeal pat­tern. (Cervo, et al., 2008; Green and Field, 2010; Shee­han and Tib­betts, 2009; Ther­aulaz, et al., 1992; Tib­betts and Dale, 2004)

Fe­male queens are fer­til­ized in the fall, go into hi­ber­na­tion, and pro­duce eggs in the early spring. Once these eggs be­come adults after 3 to 4 weeks, they be­come work­ers within the colony and are sub­or­di­nate to the fe­male queen. In the sum­mer and later part of the sea­son, sev­eral dozen wasps com­pose the colony. Within wasp colonies, the first born wasps of a brood may be the ones that be­come an in­te­gral part of the colony, whereas wasps born later in the brood may have lower so­cial sta­tus or may be ex­cluded from the colony. In small colonies, the work­ers be­sides the ini­tial six from a brood often have lit­tle in­ter­ac­tion with higher ranked wasps. (Cran­shaw, 2008; Kar­sai, et al., 1996)

A fer­til­ized fe­male Eu­ro­pean paper wasp that starts a colony dur­ing the spring builds a nest along with the help of her first brood of off­spring. The wasps con­tinue to use this nest through­out the sea­son al­though they add to it as the colony gets larger. The fol­low­ing sea­son the fer­til­ized fe­male, whether the same or dif­fer­ent in­di­vid­ual from the pre­vi­ous year, es­tab­lishes a new nest and rarely re­turns to the nest of the pre­vi­ous year. Foundresses visit sig­nif­i­cantly less area on the comb than work­ers. Each wasp vis­its roughly 12% of the comb sur­face within a day re­gard­less of the total time that they spend on the nest that day. While work­ers vis­ited on av­er­age 52% of the comb sur­face over many days, foundresses only vis­ited 50%. (Barac­chi, et al., 2010; Cran­shaw, 2008)

• Key Behaviors
• flies
• diurnal
• motile
• hibernation
• social
• colonial
• dominance hierarchies

Home Range

There is lit­tle in­for­ma­tion about the home range of Eu­ro­pean paper wasps.

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and Per­cep­tion

Recog­ni­tion be­tween Eu­ro­pean paper wasp in­di­vid­u­als in­creases the level of co­op­er­a­tion and si­mul­ta­ne­ously de­creases the level of ag­gres­sion be­tween wasps. How­ever, there may be no in­di­vid­ual recog­ni­tion bbe­cause quan­ti­ties of ag­gres­sive be­hav­iors are the same re­gard­less of whether the wasps have met be­fore or not. (Shee­han and Tib­betts, 2010)

In order to dif­fer­en­ti­ate be­tween nest­mates and non-colony mem­bers, Eu­ro­pean paper wasps may rely on iso­lated cu­tic­u­lar hy­dro­car­bons lo­cated on the epi­cu­ti­cle, the out­side waxy layer of the cu­ti­cle. These hy­dro­car­bons serve as a chem­i­cal iden­ti­fi­ca­tion sig­nal for in­di­vid­u­als to dis­crim­i­nate be­tween mem­bers of their colony and other colonies. How­ever, polar com­pounds lo­cated on the epi­cu­ti­cle do not play a role in this iden­ti­fi­ca­tion. (Br­us­chini, et al., 2011)

Eu­ro­pean paper wasps use tac­tile com­mu­ni­ca­tion in two forms of dom­i­nance be­hav­ior: mount­ing and box­ing. The more ex­treme form, mount­ing, in­volves a more dom­i­nant wasp drum­ming his or her an­ten­nae on an­other wasp's head, re­sult­ing in the re­cip­i­ent wasp low­er­ing its head and an­ten­nae in re­sponse. Box­ing con­sists of a wasp using its front legs to bat at an­other wasp and grap­pling with it by curl­ing and spi­ral­ing its body around its op­po­nent to try to gain dom­i­nance. Eu­ro­pean paper wasps also lightly bat other wasps’ heads with their an­ten­nae or drum on their ab­domens as a more sub­tle form of an­a­lyz­ing them. (Izzo, 2011)

• Communication Channels
• visual
• tactile
• chemical

• Other Communication Modes
• vibrations

• Perception Channels
• visual
• tactile
• vibrations
• chemical

Food Habits

Eu­ro­pean paper wasps are om­niv­o­rous, but some­times preda­tory, feed­ing on in­sect lar­vae and cater­pil­lars. They also con­sume aphids, hon­ey­dew, and nec­tar from flow­ers. Eu­ro­pean paper wasps con­sume a wider va­ri­ety of in­sects than north­ern paper wasps, which spe­cial­ize in cater­pil­lars. (Cervo, et al., 2008)

• Primary Diet
• carnivore
  • insectivore
• herbivore
  • frugivore
  • nectarivore
• omnivore

• Animal Foods
• insects

• Plant Foods
• fruit
• nectar

Pre­da­tion

Eu­ro­pean paper wasps look sim­i­lar to other species in the genus, which may make it dif­fi­cult for preda­tors to dis­cern be­tween two species. (Bartelt, 2011)

Ecosys­tem Roles

Both na­tive and in­tro­duced colonies of Eu­ro­pean paper wasps play a role in pol­li­nat­ing plants. They also con­sume in­sects, par­tic­u­larly cater­pil­lars, as both adults and lar­vae. In cer­tain areas where Eu­ro­pean paper wasps are an in­tro­duced species, there are sig­nif­i­cant con­cerns re­gard­ing its ef­fects on the na­tive North­ern paper wasp. Since Eu­ro­pean paper wasps es­tab­lish their nests be­fore na­tive species in the spring, they can ex­pand their colonies with­out sig­nif­i­cant com­pe­ti­tion. By nest­ing early in the sea­son, they avoid bird preda­tors, thereby in­creas­ing their sur­vival rate and the like­li­hood that early broods sur­vive and de­velop into work­ers that can pro­tect lar­vae. Un­like na­tive mem­bers of their genus (Polistes), Eu­ro­pean paper wasps con­sume cater­pil­lars as well as other foods, and their var­ied diet ben­e­fits lar­val de­vel­op­ment due to in­creased nu­tri­tional vari­a­tion. Their re­pro­duc­tive suc­cess may have neg­a­tive ef­fects on na­tive (Polistes) species pop­u­la­tions, as well as other in­sects. (Cervo, et al., 2000; Cran­shaw, 2008; Ja­cobs, 2011; Stahlhut, et al., 2006)

Na­tive Eu­ro­pean paper wasps in the Mediter­ranean are often in­fected by par­a­sitoids in­clud­ing En­durus ar­gi­o­lus and Xenos ves­parum. Adult par­a­sitoids lay eggs on or in­side of a host or­gan­ism, which even­tu­ally hatch into lar­vae that in­fect, ster­il­ize, and some­times kill their hosts. These North Amer­i­can par­a­sitoids do not gen­er­ally in­fect Eu­ro­pean paper wasps in the United States be­cause they do not rec­og­nize them as hosts based on their re­cent in­tro­duc­tion. Wol­bachia is a par­a­sitic mi­crobe bac­te­ria that in­fects male and fe­male Eu­ro­pean paper wasps in both Italy and north­east­ern United States. (Cervo, et al., 2000; Ja­cobs, 2011; Stahlhut, et al., 2006)

• Ecosystem Impact
• pollinates

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Pos­i­tive

Eu­ro­pean paper wasps pol­li­nate plants, thereby ben­e­fit­ing hu­mans. They help con­trol in­sects such as cater­pil­lars, horn­worm lar­vae, cab­bage­worms, tent cater­pil­lars, and lar­vae of sawfly fam­i­lies Cim­bi­ci­dae, Dipri­on­idae, and Ten­thre­dinidae. (Bartelt, 2011; Cran­shaw, 2008)

• Positive Impacts
• pollinates crops
• controls pest population

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Neg­a­tive

Eu­ro­pean paper wasps sting hu­mans and other an­i­mals when they get too close to their nests. Ad­di­tion­ally, na­tive wasp species may be threat­ened by them, which could even­tu­ally af­fect the fauna in the area. Eu­ro­pean paper wasps choose to nest in man-made struc­tures more often than other species in their genus (Polistes) and thus peo­ple often re­sort to using pes­ti­cides or other tech­niques to kill the wasps and re­move the nests. (Bartelt, 2011; Buck, et al., 2008a)

• Negative Impacts
• injures humans
  • bites or stings

Con­ser­va­tion Sta­tus

Eu­ro­pean paper wasps are not threat­ened or en­dan­gered.

• IUCN Red List

  No special status

• US Federal List

  No special status

• CITES

  No special status

• State of Michigan List

  No special status

Con­trib­u­tors

Eliza Stout (au­thor), Uni­ver­sity of Michi­gan-Ann Arbor, Cather­ine Kent (ed­i­tor), Spe­cial Pro­jects.

Ref­er­ences

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Beani, L., S. Turil­lazzi. 1987. Al­ter­na­tive mat­ing tac­tics in males of Polistes domin­u­lus (Hy­menoptera: Vesp­i­dae). Be­hav­ioral Ecol­ogy and So­cio­bi­ol­ogy, 22: 257-264. Ac­cessed March 24, 2012 at http://​www.​springerlink.​com/​content/​x487j6u411817hn2/​.

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