WASPnest: a worldwide assessment of social Polistine nesting behavior

Cooperative breeding decreases the direct reproductive output of subordinate individuals, but cooperation can be evolutionarily favored when there are challenges or constraints to breeding independently. Environmental factors, including temperature, precipitation, latitude, high seasonality, and environmental harshness have been hypothesized to correlate with the presence of cooperative breeding. However, to test the relationship between cooperation and ecological constraints requires comparative data on the frequency and variation of cooperative breeding across differing environments, ideally replicated across multiple species. Paper wasps are primitively social species, forming colonies composed of reproductively active dominants and foraging subordinates. Adult female wasps, referred to as foundresses, initiate new colonies. Nests can be formed by a single solitary foundress (noncooperative) or by multiple foundress associations (cooperative). Cooperative behavior varies within and among species, making paper wasps species well suited to disentangling ecological correlates of variation in cooperative behavior. This data set reports the frequency and extent of cooperative nest founding for 87 paper wasp species. Data were assembled from more than 170 published sources, previously unpublished field observations, and photographs contributed by citizen scientists to online natural history repositories. The data set includes 25,872 nest observations and reports the cooperative behavioral decisions for 45,297 foundresses. Species names were updated to reflect modern taxonomic revisions. The type of substrate on which the nest was built is also included, when available. A smaller population-level version of this data set found that the presence or absence of cooperative nesting in paper wasps was correlated with temperature stability and environmental harshness, but these variables did not predict the extent of cooperation within species. This expanded data set contains details about individual nests and further increases the power to address the relationship between the environment and the presence and extent of cooperative breeding. Beyond the ecological drivers of cooperation, these high-resolution data will be useful for future studies examining the evolutionary consequences of variation in social behavior. This data set may be used for research or educational purposes provided that this data paper is cited.

First admissions of native-born and immigrants to psychiatric hospitals in South-East England 1976

In the past, birthplace has frequently been omitted in completing the Sheet, but in 1976, over 91 per cent of all first admissions to psychiatric hospitals in South-East England were analysed by birthplace, sex, age-groups and marital status. First admissions for schizophrenia were five times the expected number for immigrants from new Commonwealth America (the West Indies), four times the expected number for immigrants from New Commonwealth Africa (mostly ethnic Asians) and three times the expected number from India. Immigrants from Pakistan and the remaining New Commonwealth Asian countries did not show a significantly higher than expected number of admissions for schizophrenia, and their first admissions for alcoholic psychosis and alcoholism, psychoneuroses and personality and behaviour disorders were significantly fewer than expected. First admissions for schizophrenia were also significantly more than expected among immigrants from Ireland, Germany and Poland, but not from italy.

First admissions to psychiatric hospitals in south-east England in 1976 among immigrants from Ireland

Irish male immigrants had twice and female immigrants 1.7 times the expected number of first admissions to psychiatric hospitals in south-east England in 1976 when the expected number was based on the age- and sex-standardised rates of first admission of the population born in the United Kingdom living in the region. Admissions for alcoholism and alcoholic psychosis were five times higher in men and four times higher in women, and for schizophrenia 2.4 times as high in both sexes, as expected from these rates. When the expected number of first admissions was based on the age- and sex-standardised rates among Irish people living in Ireland the immigrants had fewer admissions than expected. Among migrants from Northern Ireland the number of first admissions was significantly greater than expected. Admissions for alcoholism and alcoholic psychosis in men and women combined were seven times the expected number based on the UK rates. There was no significant difference in the proportion of single people between the Irish immigrants and people born in the UK. Marital state, socioeconomic group, and occupation may partly account for the high number of admissions for alcoholism and schizophrenia among Irish people living in south-east England.