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Leipomeles dorsata is a neotropical paper wasp that is found across central America and northern South America. It is a eusocial wasp and shows little differenciation between the reproducing and non-reproducing females.

Taxonomy and phylogeny
L. dorsata  is part of the tribe Epiponini, a group of neotropical eusocial wasps. This species has an interesting taxanomic history.Other species have been synonymized to the first being by Fabricus in 1804. The initially classification of the species Polybia nana became Leipomeles nana in 1912 and was eventually synonymized with L. dorsata. L. nana was the junior synonom and L. dorsata is the senior synonym. However, L. nana has since been reclassifedd as it's own distinct species, Leipomeles spilogastra, and is no longer a synonym of L. dorsata.

Description and identification
L. dorsata  females are a variety of colors, varying between chestnut to dark brown. However, egglayer females sometimes exhbitt yellow patterns on the head and thorax.

Nests are papernestt, made of extremely thin material. Nests may or may not be pertriole. If there is a pertriole present it is covered in a sticky substance that protects the nest against ants. The nests are a series of combs underneith the leaf, and may be fused.

Distribution and habitat
This is a neotropical species present in the rainforests of central and south america. It is mainly found in the lowland areas of these forests from 50-500m elevations. Large scale morphological studies did most of their collecting from Costa Rica.

Colony cycle
This species has a distinct colony cycle, with primary egglayers only being produced for a limited amount of time. The stage in this cycle that is based on the number of brown verus yellow egg layers in a colony. The yellow females have longer ovaries than the brown females. This is likely due to the brown egglayers being former worker ants that have become egg layers in the colony. All of the yellow egg layers are older females, but there is usallyy a mix between ages in the brown egg layers. This occurs when a colony is deprived of it's yellow egg layers, the brown workers are signaled to become replacements, an example fo cyclical oligygny. Eventually, the yellow egg layer population recovers and the workers aggressively prevent other females from becoming egg layers.

Reproductive Suppression
L. dorsata 's cyclical oligygny creates an interesting type of reproductive supressionn. While this cycle is an advantage when the colony has lost it's primary reproductives (yellow long ovary females), as the primaries begin to recover they limit the secondary worker reproductives (brown short ovaries).

Communication
L. dorsata display trail marking during colony migration, which is rather common for neotropical swarming wasps. The scouts will drag or rub the underside of their bodies on surfaces, such as leaves along the migration route. However, what makes L. dorsata unique is that it lacks the Richard's Organ, generally associated with pheromone production in other species that exhibit this behavior.

Mating Behavior
In the case of most of the Epiponini tribe the reproductives stay in the nest, whihc requress males to find their way into the nest to mate. A explanation for the males ability to find potential mates is that the patrol for mates, and follow colony migration pheramones that were laid down by scouts to new nest sites. In fact, males have been sighted at L. dorsata colonies as soon as the first day of nest construction. In addition, males then might might also be attracted by reproductives pheromones to find their way into the nest to mate.

Worker Queen Conflict
L. dorsata is a species that does not have queens per say, rather multiple egg layers that are in charge of reproduction. The degree that these egg layers are specialized for reproduction depends on how functional their ovaries are. There are four patterns of ovaries that were observed in this species, no oocytes, immature oocytes, well-developed oocytes with at least one mature one, and several well-developed and completely mature oocytes. The females with the more mature reproductive organs are the ones that have greater reproductive sucesss because they are more specialized, in cases where there are there are both brown worker egg-layers with the thid reproductive pattern and yellow reproductives with the fourth reproductive pattern, the yellow females out preform and outcompete the brown ones. However, if there are no yellow females present than the brown workers may be solely responsible for the colonies reproduction.

Colony Survivorship
L. dorsata has several qualities that allow for hihg colony survivorship. Mainly, that they display cyclical oligygny. This allows workers to temporarily take the place of egg layers when there are few or no egg layers, allowing the population to sruvive during a period of high egg layer mortality. Also the ability of male Epiponini to find nest with virgin females, also contributes to colony survivorship. This ensures that copulation can take place in colonies where there has been loss of reproductives and ensure reproductive sucesss of the colony.

Camouflage
L. dorsata builds it's nests in a way that disguises it from vertebrae predators. They choose an overhaningg leaf and build the nest underneath it so that it is hidden, and then proceed to construct an envolope that mimics the color and patterns of the leaves surrondingg the nest.

Diet
L. dorsata, as with other paper wasps, mailyy feed on insects and other arthropods, that they find by forging.

Predators
Like most neotropical paper wasps the main predators of L. dorsata are ants and birds that feed on a variety of insects. Specifically army ants present a grave threat to paper wasps in the tropics, and nests and behaviors have evolved as a way to combat this predation pressure, in the case of L. dorsata this is seen in the chemical defense described below.

Defense
In the case of L. dorsata, defense is passive rather than active. Nest pertrioles are covered in a sticky substance that protects the nest and the larva inside from ants. This protection, is perhaps the reason that this species has extremely docile females. In many species that employ this method, the small size of the wasps requires alternate defense systems rather than aggression, things like chemical defense and large numbers of adults at the foundational stage.