GENETIC RELATEDNESS AND THE BREEDING STRUCTURE OF THE JAPANESE PAPER WASP, POLISTES-JADWIGAE

Genetic relatedness and the breeding structure of a Japanese paper wasp, Polistes jadwigae, population was studied using electrophoresis of adults collected from 1985 to 1988. Mean genetic relatedness among female offspring was estimated to be 0.729 when data for 4 years were combined. This value was not significantly different from a hypothetical value (0.75) for the case where one single-mated queen is the mother of all female progeny. No sign of inbreeding was detected. Mating frequency of queens estimated by using the goodness of fit test on Chi-square distribution and the ANOVA method, also suggests that it was most probable that female progeny of P. jadwigae colonies were produced by a single queen mated only once.