Do nest fidelity and intolerance decrease at the end of the colony cycle in (Christ.) (Hymenoptera Vespidae)?

Gynes of several species of paper wasps usually hibernate in clusters. In Polistes dominulus aggregations are often made up of hundreds of individuals and it has recently been demonstrated that aggregating wasps belong to different colonies. Consequently, it is necessary that gynes raise their aggressive threshold towards non-nestmates in this phase of the colony cycle. As nest fidelity and tolerance levels depend on the presence of resources to defend it is predictable that both of them might already decrease on the nest at the end of the colony cycle, when combs are empty and the wasps are going to cluster in aggregations to hibernate. In this paper we demonstrated that P. dominulus wasps left their natal nests more frequently at the very end of summer compared to a previous period. This finding seems to suggest that a decrease of nest fidelity and an increase of tolerance could determine not only a reduction of nest defence costs (far to be necessary in this phase of the colony cycle), but it might also produce an improvement of the chance to overwinter in larger clusters.