Individuality influences social success in Polistes paper wasps

Keeping track of individual relationships is key to social success in diverse vertebrate taxa. Insects are sometimes thought to rely more strongly on group-level interactions, but recent work indicates that individuality often plays a key role in insect behavior. Polistes fuscatus paper wasps use individual face recognition to keep track of social relationships both on and off nests. In this study, we analyze how wasps use individual recognition to assess potential social partners before founding nests. We find that variation in individual recognition influences both partner assessment behavior and the success of partnerships. Wasps that are more adept at individual face recognition form more cooperative and successful social partnerships and have more offspring than wasps that are less adept at individual face recognition. These results indicate that individuality plays an important role in paper wasp behavior.