First records of direct kleptoparasitism in yellowjacket wasps (Vespidae: Vespula)

jeso2023005Yellowjacket wasps (Vespula Thomson (Hymenoptera: Vespidae)) have been thoroughly studied in terms of feeding ecology.They forage for two main foodstuffs: carbohydrates and protein (Edwards 1981).The workers collect carbohydrates from both anthropogenic and natural sources (e.g., concentrated sugars from honeydew-producing insects, plant sap, honey, and sugary drinks and food) to provide themselves and the brood with energy (West-Eberhard 1978;Akre et al. 1981;Raveret Richter 2000).Alongside carbohydrates, some species groups of yellowjackets (e.g., V. squamosa (Drury) and V. vulgaris (Linnaeus)) also collect protein-rich food from anthropogenic sources, often becoming nuisances at picnic tables and garbage cans while taking advantage of discarded or unattended food (Morse et al. 1977;Akre et al. 1981).With these nutrient sources abundant in urban and suburban areas, yellowjackets have become prolific in cities and towns (Morse et al. 1977;Akre et al. 1981).Despite the abundance of anthropogenic food sources, yellowjackets, as opportunistic foragers, also turn to natural sources of protein, preying on or scavenging for other arthropods (Coelho and Hoagland 1995;Raveret Richter 2000;Pusceddu et al. 2018).Yellowjackets (e.g., V. germanica (Fabricius) and V. vulgaris) often specialize in preying on or scavenging for honey bees (Apis mellifera Linnaeus) (Coelho and Hoagland 1995;Pusceddu et al. 2018).Yellowjacket workers have been recorded isolating and preying on lone worker bees carrying injured nestmates, sick or weakened honey bees, or scavenging dead bees from below hives.Yellowjackets rarely succeed in attacking honey bee hives directly as honey bees have been shown capable of driving off direct assaults (Pusceddu et al. 2017).Despite this low success rate at hive entrances, yellowjackets have been recorded entering the hive and stealing honey, noted as a form of kleptoparasitic foraging behaviour (Clapperton et al. 1989;MacIntyre and Hellstrom 2015;Pusceddu et al. 2017).Kleptoparasitism, also known as cleptobiosis (Breed et al. 2012), is defined as the theft of a resource that requires energy to collect, classically the forceful theft of prey (Iyengar 2008).The host and kleptoparasite might be of the same species or of different species, though they cannot be relatives as the benefits of increased indirect fitness may

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