INITIAL STUDY OF SOCIAL VESPID WASPS BY USING MOLECULAR APPROACH OF 28S REGION

Abstract

The social wasps (Vespidae) display a wide range of diversity in their
ecology and social organization, providing insights into the origins of
simple societies and the elaboration and maintenance of complex
societies. Social wasps play an important role in our ecosystems and
economies, for example, through their pollination and pest control
services. Compared with other social insects (e.g. ants, termites and
bees), the social wasps are understudied. The social subfamilies within
the Vespidae namely Stenogastrinae, Polistinae and Vespinae occurred
together only in the oriental region. Cladistic analysis of behavioral
data showed that Stenogastrinae has been grouped with the social
Polistinae and Vespinae in the family of Vespidae. However it has
been reported that Stenogastrinae are more closely related to the solitary wasps; Eumeninae than to the other social subfamilies, based on their morphological characters. The aim of this study is to make initial study relationship between the subfamily in the social vespid wasps (Stenogastrinae, Polistinae, and Vespinae) based on 28S nuclear DNA. Construction of phylogenetic tree shows a monophyletic clade between subfamily of Vespinae and Polistinae and subfamily of Stenogastrinae have been group as the sister clade to other social wasps Neighbour-Joining (NJ).