NSFDEB-NERC: Revealing how climate shapes cooperation: integrating genomics, morphology and behaviour in social wasps spanning Sub-Saharan Africa

Columbia University, New York NY

Investigators

Abstract

Many of the most abundant organisms on earth—including humans—are so successful because they cooperate with one another. Although cooperative species tend to be found in harsh environments characterized by drought and unpredictable rainfall, it remains unclear why. Nearly all previous work has established global patterns between social behavior and environment by comparing different species in different habitats. Yet, determining why environmental harshness favors cooperation requires within-species studies across different habitat types rather than just among-species correlations across the globe. By combining field experiments and long-term observations, studies of brain morphology and gene expression, and theoretical modelling, the researchers will establish the largest within-species study of cooperation ever attempted in social wasps that span a range of more than 4000 km across Sub-Saharan Africa. From arid deserts to lush rainforests, Africa’s most widespread wasp Belonogaster juncea is ideally suited to study the links between the environment and cooperation. Using populations in Cameroon, Kenya, and South Africa, the researchers will work at a continental scale to help transform the field of social evolution. Results will be of interest to biologists and social scientists studying cooperation broadly; AI deployment will benefit researchers tracking individuals in complex environments; and our international team (USA, UK, Cameroon, Kenya, South Africa, Taiwan) will promote capacity-building in Africa. The researchers will also provide outreach across continents, enthusing audiences about animal societies and the potential for ‘big picture’ experiments to solve fundamental problems in biology. Paper wasps have long been considered classic models for studying cooperation. The researchers will use the wide-ranging African wasp Belonogaster juncea to test, for the first time in an insect, ideas relating environmental variability to social evolution. By combining (1) field-based behavioral experiments and AI approaches to social network analysis, (2) mechanistic studies of brain transcriptomics, micro-CT-scanning, whole-genome resequencing, and AI approaches to morphological evolution, and (3) evolutionary simulations and game theory models, the researchers will pursue four primary objectives. First, they will test whether aridity amplifies the value of cooperation through field experiments in different environments. Second, they will test whether harsh environments promote peaceful cooperation by making conflict too risky, deploying AI to dissect social networks. Third, they will test the key prediction that seasonal environments drive members of cooperative groups to adopt specialist roles, combining integrative approaches to dissect molecular and morphological phenotypes. Finally, they will examine which environmental conditions likely fostered the origin of cooperation in the ancient ancestors of wasps by developing evolutionary simulations and mathematical models based on real-world data. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.