ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2011
Comparative analysis of constraints and caste differences in brain investment among social paper wasps.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2011. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers.
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Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed.
- Linking individual fitness to the evolution of cognition.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025Review
- Label-Free Multiphoton Imaging Reveals Volumetric Shifts Across Development in Sensory-Related Brain Regions of a Miniature Transparent Vertebrate.The Journal of comparative neurology · 2025Article
- Brain evolution in social insects: advocating for the comparative approach.Journal of comparative physiology. A, Neuroethology, sensory, neural, and behavioral physiology · 2019Review
- Brain Organization ofFrontiers in neuroanatomy · 2019Article
- Division of labor and brain evolution in insect societies: Neurobiology of extreme specialization in the turtle ant Cephalotes varians.PloS one · 2019Article
- Caste-specific development of the dopaminergic system during metamorphosis in female honey bees.PloS one · 2018Article
- Why are there so many explanations for primate brain evolution?Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2017Review
- Body size limits dim-light foraging activity in stingless bees (Apidae: Meliponini).Journal of comparative physiology. A, Neuroethology, sensory, neural, and behavioral physiology · 2016Article
- Distributed cognition and social brains: reductions in mushroom body investment accompanied the origins of sociality in wasps (Hymenoptera: Vespidae).Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2015Article
- Brain composition in Godyris zavaleta, a diurnal butterfly, Reflects an increased reliance on olfactory information.The Journal of comparative neurology · 2015Article
- Toward a neurology of loneliness.Psychological bulletin · 2014Review
- Investment in higher order central processing regions is not constrained by brain size in social insects.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2014Article
- An exploration of the social brain hypothesis in insects.Frontiers in physiology · 2012Article
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3 authors.
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Abstract
We compared species mean data on the size of functionally distinct brain regions to test the relative rates at which investment in higher-order cognitive processing (mushroom body calyces) versus peripheral sensory processing (optic and antennal lobes) increased with increasing brain size. Subjects were eusocial paper wasps from queen and worker castes of 10 species from different genera. Relative investment in central processing tissue increased with brain size at a higher rate than peripheral structure investment, demonstrating that tissue devoted to higher-order cognitive processing is more constrained by brain size. This pattern held for raw data and for phylogenetically independent contrasts. These findings suggest that there is a minimum necessary investment in peripheral sensory processing brain tissue, with little to gain from additional investment. In contrast, increased brain size provides opportunities to invest in additional higher-order cognitive processing tissue. Reproductive castes differed within species in brain tissue investment, with higher central-to-peripheral brain tissue ratios in queens than in workers. Coupled with previous findings that paper wasp queen, but not worker, brain architecture corresponds to ecological and social variation, queen brain evolution appears to be most strongly shaped by cognitive demands, such as social interactions. These evolutionary patterns of neural investment echo findings in other animal lineages and have important implications, given that a greater investment in higher-order processing has been shown to increase the prevalence of complex and flexible behaviors across the animal kingdom.
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