Niche Dynamics and Climatic Novelty Drive the Invasion Success of the European Paper Wasp Across North America

Aim: Predicting range expansion requires separating whether species establish in new habitats by tracking similar environments or by occupying novel conditions. We test these hypotheses using the European paper wasp (Polistes dominula), an invasive social insect, by integrating complementary approaches to characterize niche dynamics. Location: North America (invaded range) and Palearctic region (native range). Taxon: Paper wasps (Polistes, Hymenoptera: Vespidae). Methods: We compiled 82,058 occurrence records for 16 Polistes species and analysed (i) niche breadth and overlap across species, and for P. dominula specifically, (ii) native-invasive dynamics using the COUE (centroid shift, overlap, unfilling, and expansion) framework, (iii) climatic novelty in geographic space using multivariate environmental similarity surfaces (MESS), and (iv) environmental and urban drivers of range expansion. Results: P. dominula has the broadest environmental niche. Its North American invasion shows dual dynamics: high niche stability (90.8%) in environmental space, yet 24.7% of invaded populations occupy geographically novel conditions absent from the native range. This contrast shows that stable niches can still include novel climates when viewed geographically. Expansion was driven by tolerance of increased temperature seasonality and decreased precipitation seasonality, not urbanization. Native species had low niche overlap (Median Schoener's D = 0.15), whereas P. dominula showed moderate overlap with native generalist P. fuscatus (Schoener's D = 0.51), suggesting potential for competitive interactions. Main Conclusions: Invasion success in P. dominula shows strong niche conservatism with some expansion into climatically novel conditions. This was enabled by broad environmental tolerance, whereas urbanization played a minor role. The contrast between high stability in environmental space and strong novelty in geographic space shows that these frameworks capture different dimensions of invasion dynamics. Integrating these approaches provides a comprehensive picture of how invasive species establish and spread.

Duke Scholars

Author Sara Elizabeth Miller Pathology