Anton Stabentheiner, Teresa Mauerhofer, Regina Willfurth, Helmut Kovac, Edith Stabentheiner, Helmut Käfer, Iacopo Petrocelli
Overwintering insects are facing energetic challenges because of food shortage, low temperature, and desiccation stress. Paper wasps of the genus Polistes overwinter as mated adults (gynes) in hibernacula protecting them from predation, snow, and rain but barely from low environmental temperature. In different climates, they face differing overwintering temperature regimes, and therefore they may differ in their energy use. We investigated how much of energy resources built up until autumn is used during diapause dormancy in natural hibernacula by measuring lipid, glycogen, and free carbohydrate content in autumn and early spring in Polistes dominula from temperate European (Austrian) and warm Mediterranean (Italian) climate and Polistes gallicus from Mediterranean climate...
March 5, 2024: Journal of Comparative Physiology. B, Biochemical, Systemic, and Environmental Physiology