Hostname: page-component-669899f699-cf6xr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-26T05:08:31.676Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Green land in a landscape bolsters the dietary diversity of reared yellow-legged hornet Vespa velutina Lepeletier (Hymenoptera: Vespidae)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 April 2025

Zhenghua Xie Open the ORCID record for Zhenghua Xie [Opens in a new window] ,
Xuanxuan Feng ,
Jianmin Wang ,
Xuejian Jiang ,
Penfei Zhao  and
Yuke Jia
Zhenghua Xie*
Affiliation:
Institute of Highland Forest Science, Chinese Academy of Forestry, Kunming, China Guangxi Key Laboratory of Special Non-wood Forests Cultivation and Utilization, Nanning, China Key Laboratory of Cultivating and Utilization of Resources Insects of State Forestry Administration, Institute of Highland Forest Science, Chinese Academy of Forestry, Kunming, China
Xuanxuan Feng
Affiliation:
Institute of Highland Forest Science, Chinese Academy of Forestry, Kunming, China Guangxi Key Laboratory of Special Non-wood Forests Cultivation and Utilization, Nanning, China Key Laboratory of Cultivating and Utilization of Resources Insects of State Forestry Administration, Institute of Highland Forest Science, Chinese Academy of Forestry, Kunming, China
Jianmin Wang*
Affiliation:
Yunnan Rural Science and Technology Service Centre, Kunming, China
Xuejian Jiang
Affiliation:
Guangxi Key Laboratory of Special Non-wood Forests Cultivation and Utilization, Nanning, China Guangxi Engineering Research Center of Forest Pests’ Natural Enemies Breeding, Nanning, China
Penfei Zhao
Affiliation:
Guangxi Key Laboratory of Special Non-wood Forests Cultivation and Utilization, Nanning, China Guangxi Engineering Research Center of Forest Pests’ Natural Enemies Breeding, Nanning, China
Yuke Jia
Affiliation:
Institute of Highland Forest Science, Chinese Academy of Forestry, Kunming, China Guangxi Key Laboratory of Special Non-wood Forests Cultivation and Utilization, Nanning, China Key Laboratory of Cultivating and Utilization of Resources Insects of State Forestry Administration, Institute of Highland Forest Science, Chinese Academy of Forestry, Kunming, China
*
Corresponding author: Zhenghua Xie; Email: [email protected];
Jianmin Wang; Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Land use change has significantly altered most ecosystem functioning, such as nutrition provisioning, water flows and pollination services. So far, the impact of land use change on the dietary diversity of predatory insects has remained largely unexplored. In this study, we explored the prey composition of reared yellow-legged hornets Vespa velutina Lepeletier (Hymenoptera: Vespidae) in landscapes with a gradient of surrounding green lands, using metabarcoding of feces eliminated by larvae. The hornets primarily fed upon insects, with dipterans, coleopterans, lepidopterans, hemipterans, hymenopterans, and orthopterans being the dominant prey groups. The percentage of green lands had a significantly positive effect on prey richness at a spatial scale of 1500 m, but no effect on Shannnon index of the prey community. Meanwhile, the green lands had significantly positive effects on richness of coleopteran prey and lepidopteran prey, but no significant effect on richness of dipteran prey, hemipteran prey, hymenopteran prey, or orthopteran prey. In terms of beta diversity, the percentage of green lands explained the dissimilarity of prey communities among landscapes, whereas local factors, such as the distance to green lands and the distance to buildings, did not explain the dissimilarity. Our study indicated that the green lands in the landscape positively affected the dietary diversity of reared yellow-legged hornets, but this effect varied among different taxonomic groups of prey.

Keywords

dietary diversitylandscape compositionmetabarcodingreared hornetsspatial scale of effect
Type
Research Paper
Information
Bulletin of Entomological Research , First View , pp. 1 - 11
Check for updates
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Arroyo–Rodríguez, V, Martínez-Ruiz, M, Bezerra, JS, Galán-Acedo, C, San-José, M and Fahrig, L (2023) Does a species mobility determine the scale at which it is influenced by the surrounding landscape pattern? Current Landscape Ecology Reports 8, 23–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barrows, EM (2021) Prey-handling flexibility in Vespa crabro Linnaeus, the European hornet (Hymenoptera: Vespidae). Proceedings of the Entomological Society of Washington 123, 424–428.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brandon-Mong, G-J, Gan, H-M, Sing, K-W, Lee, P-S, Lim, P-E and Wilson, -J-J (2015) DNA metabarcoding of insects and allies: An evaluation of primers and pipelines. Bulletin of Entomological Research 105, 717–727.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Brock, RE, Cini, A and Sumner, S (2021) Ecosystem services provided by aculeate wasps. Biological Reviews 96, 1645–1675.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bunker, S (2019) The Asian Hornet Handbook. Devon, England: Psocid Press.Google Scholar
Courtney, GW, Pape, T, Skevington, JH and Sinclair, BJ (2017) Biodiversity of Diptera. In Foottit, RG and Adler, PH (ed.), Insect Biodiversity: Science and Society. Hoboken, New Jersey: Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 229–278.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Deagle, BE, Thomas, AC, McInnes, JC, Clarke, LJ, Vesterinen, EJ, Clare, EL, Kartzinel, TR and Eveson, JP (2019) Counting with DNA in metabarcoding studies: How should we convert sequence reads to dietary data? Molecular Ecology 28, 391–406.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Doyle, T, Hawkes, WLS, Massy, R, Powney, GD, Menz, MHM and Wotton, KR (2020) Pollination by hoverflies in the anthropocene. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 287, 20200508.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Edgar, RC (2013) UPARSE: Highly accurate OTU sequences from microbial amplicon reads. Nature Methods 10, 996–998.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Edgar, RC (2018) Updating the 97% identity threshold for 16S ribosomal RNA OTUs. Bioinformatics 34, 2371–2375.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Faith, DP, Minchin, PR and Belbin, L (1987) Compositional dissimilarity as a robust measure of ecological distance. Vegetatio 69, 57–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haan, NL, Zhang, Y and Landis, DA (2020) Predicting landscape configuration effects on agricultural pest suppression. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 35, 175–186.Google ScholarPubMed
Haslett, JR (2001) Biodiversity and conservation of Diptera in heterogeneous land mosaics: A fly’s eye view. Journal of Insect Conservation 5, 71–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jackson, HB and Fahrig, L (2012) What size is a biologically relevant landscape? Landscape Ecology 27, 929–941.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jin, J, Liu, X and Shiroguchi, K (2024) Long journey of 16S rRNA‐amplicon sequencing toward cell-based functional bacterial microbiota characterization. iMetaOmics 1, e9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Karp, DS, Chaplin-Kramer, R, Meehan, TD, Martin, EA, DeClerck, F, Grab, H, Gratton, C, Hunt, L, Larsen, AE and Martínez-Salinas, A (2018) Crop pests and predators exhibit inconsistent responses to surrounding landscape composition. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 115: E7863–E7870.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
King, R, Read, D, Traugott, M and Symondson, WOC (2008) Invited review: Molecular analysis of predation: A review of best practice for DNA‐based approaches. Molecular Ecology 17, 947–963.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lamb, PD, Hunter, E, Pinnegar, JK, Creer, S, Davies, RG and Taylor, MI (2019) How quantitative is metabarcoding: A meta‐analytical approach. Molecular Ecology 28, 420–430.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lefort, M, Beggs, J, Glare, T, Saunders, T, Doyle, E and Boyer, S (2020) A molecular approach to study Hymenoptera diets using wasp nests. NeoBiota 63, 57–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lemessa, D, Hambäck, PA and Hylander, K (2015) The effect of local and landscape level land-use composition on predatory arthropods in a tropical agricultural landscape. Landscape Ecology 30, 167–180.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leray, M, Yang, JY, Meyer, CP, Mills, SC, Agudelo, N, Ranwez, V, Boehm, JT and Machida, RJ (2013) A new versatile primer set targeting a short fragment of the mitochondrial COI region for metabarcoding metazoan diversity: Application for characterizing coral reef fish gut contents. Frontiers in Zoology 10, 1–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lioy, S, Bergamino, C and Porporato, M (2022) The invasive hornet Vespa velutina: Distribution, impacts and management options. CABI Reviews doi:10.1079/cabireviews202217030CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Liu, M, Clarke, LJ, Baker, SC, Jordan, GJ and Burridge, CP (2020) A practical guide to DNA metabarcoding for entomological ecologists. Ecological Entomology 45, 373–385.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Madureira, M, Rodrigues, I, Villa, M and Pereira, JA (2023) The surrounding landscape shapes the abundance of Sphaerophoria scripta and Melanostoma mellinum (Diptera: Syrphidae) in Portuguese vineyards. Agricultural and Forest Entomology 25, 206–216.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Matsuura, M and Yamane, S (1990) Biology of the Vespine Wasps. Berlin, Germany: Springer-Verlag.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miguet, P, Jackson, HB and Jackson, ND (2016) What determines the spatial extent of landscape effects on species? Landscape Ecology 31, 1177–1194.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Montagnana, PC, Alves, RS, Garófalo, CA and Ribeiro, MC (2021) Landscape heterogeneity and forest cover shape cavity-nesting hymenopteran communities in a multi-scale perspective. Basic and Applied Ecology 56, 239–249.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O’Shea-Wheller, TA, Curtis, RJ, Kennedy, PJ, Groom, EK, Poidatz, J, Raffle, DS, Rojas-Nossa, SV, Bartolomé, C, Dasilva-Martins, D and Maside, X (2023) Quantifying the impact of an invasive hornet on Bombus terrestris colonies. Communications Biology 6, 990.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Outhwaite, CL, McCann, P and Newbold, T (2022) Agriculture and climate change are reshaping insect biodiversity worldwide. Nature 605, 97–102.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Perrard, A, Haxaire, J, Rortais, A and Villemant, C (2009) Published. Observations on the colony activity of the Asian hornet Vespa velutina Lepeletier 1836 (Hymenoptera: Vespidae: Vespinae) in France. Annales de la Société Entomologique de France 45, 119–127.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Persson, AS, Ekroos, J, Olsson, P and Smith, HG (2020) Wild bees and hoverflies respond differently to urbanisation, human population density and urban form. Landscape and Urban Planning 204, 103901.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pompanon, F, Deagle, BE, Symondson, WO, Brown, DS, Jarman, SN and Taberlet, P (2012) Who is eating what: Diet assessment using next generation sequencing. Molecular Ecology 21, 1931–1950.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ratnasingham, S and Hebert, PD (2007) BOLD: The Barcode of Life Data System (http://www.barcodinglife.org). Molecular Ecology Notes 7, 355–364.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
R Core Team (2024) R: A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing. Vienna, Austria: R Foundation for Statistical Computing. https://www.R-project.org/Google Scholar
Richter, MR (2000) Social wasp (Hymenoptera: Vespidae) foraging behavior. Annual Review of Entomology 45, 121–150.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rome, Q, Perrard, A, Muller, F, Fontaine, C, Quilès, A, Zuccon, D and Villemant, C (2021) Not just honeybees: Predatory habits of Vespa velutina (Hymenoptera: Vespidae) in France. Annales de la Société Entomologique de France (NS) 57, 1–11.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sackmann, P, D’Adamo, P, Rabinovich, M and Corley, JC (2000) Arthropod prey foraged by the German wasp (Vespula germanica) in NW Patagonia, Argentina. New Zealand Entomologist 23, 55–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schirmel, J, Albrecht, M, Bauer, PM, Sutter, L, Pfister, SC and Entling, MH (2018) Landscape complexity promotes hoverflies across different types of semi‐natural habitats in farmland. Journal of Applied Ecology 55, 1747–1758.Google Scholar
Schmack, JM, Lear, G, Astudillo‐Garcia, C, Boyer, S, Ward, DF and Beggs, JR (2021) DNA metabarcoding of prey reveals spatial, temporal and diet partitioning of an island ecosystem by four invasive wasps. Journal of Applied Ecology 58, 1199–1211.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shannon, CE (1948) A mathematical theory of communication. The Bell System Technical Journal 27, 379–423.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shannon, CE and Weaver, W (1949) The Mathematical Theory of Communication. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Stainton, K, McGreig, S, Conyers, C, Ponting, S, Butler, L, Brown, P and Jones, EP (2023) Molecular identification of Asian hornet Vespa velutina nigrithorax prey from larval gut contents: A promising method to study the diet of an invasive pest. Animals 13, 511.Google Scholar
Steffan-Dewenter, I (2002) Landscape context affects trap-nesting bees, wasps, and their natural enemies. Ecological Entomology 27, 631–637.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Symondson, W (2002) Molecular identification of prey in predator diets. Molecular Ecology 11, 627–641.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Uhler, J, Redlich, S, Zhang, J, Hothorn, T, Tobisch, C, Ewald, J, Thorn, S, Seibold, S, Mitesser, O and Morinière, J (2021) Relationship of insect biomass and richness with land use along a climate gradient. Nature Communications 12, 5946.Google ScholarPubMed
Van Itterbeeck, J, Feng, Y, Zhao, M, Wang, C, Tan, K, Saga, T, Nonaka, K and Jung, C (2021) Rearing techniques for hornets with emphasis on Vespa velutina (Hymenoptera: Vespidae): A review. Journal of Asia-Pacific Entomology 24, 103–117.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Verdasca, MJ, Godinho, R, Rocha, RG, Portocarrero, M, Carvalheiro, LG, Rebelo, R and Rebelo, H (2022) A metabarcoding tool to detect predation of the honeybee Apis mellifera and other wild insects by the invasive Vespa velutina. Journal of Pest Science 95, 997–1007.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Villa, M, Santos, SAP, López-Sáez, JA, Pinheiro, L, Marrão, R, Aguiar, C and Pereira, JA (2021) Pollen feeding by syrphids varies across seasons in a Mediterranean landscape dominated by the olive orchard. Biological Control 156, 104556.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Villemant, C, Muller, F, Haubois, S, Perrard, A, Darrouzet, E and Rome, Q (2011) Bilan des travaux (MNHN et IRBI) sur l’invasion en France de Vespa velutina, le frelon asiatique prédateur d’abeilles. Proceedings of the Journée Scientifique Apicole 11, 3–12.Google Scholar
Ward, DF and Ramón-Laca, A (2013) Molecular identification of the prey range of the invasive Asian paper wasp. Ecology and Evolution 3, 4408–4414.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wickham, H (2016) Ggplot2: Elegant Graphics for Data Analysis. New York: Springer-Verlag.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilson, T, Looney, C, Tembrock, LR, Dickerson, S, Orr, J, Gilligan, TM and Wildung, M (2023) Insights into the prey of Vespa mandarinia (Hymenoptera: Vespidae) in Washington state, obtained from metabarcoding of larval feces. Frontiers in Insect Science 3, 1134781.Google ScholarPubMed
Wotton, KR, Gao, BY, Menz, MHM, Morris, RKA, Ball, SG, Lim, KS, Reynolds, DR, Hu, G and Chapman, JW (2019) Mass seasonal migrations of hoverflies provide extensive pollination and crop protection services. Current Biology 29, 2167–2173.Google ScholarPubMed
Zhang, T, Grube, M and Wei, X (2023) Host selection tendency of key microbiota in arid desert lichen crusts. iMeta 2, e138.Google ScholarPubMed