WASPS have “trading partners” and compete for the best deals, scientists have found.

A team from the University of Sussex’s school of life sciences looked at how the economic rule of supply and demand applies to populations of paper wasps.

This involves “helpers” raising the offspring of dominant breeders in small social groups in return for belonging in the nest.

During the study, which was carried out in southern Spain over a period of three months, the team marked 1,500 wasps and recorded social behaviour within 43 separate nests along a cactus hedge.

By increasing the number of nest spots and nesting partners available around the hedge, the scientists discovered the helper wasps provide less help to their own ‘bosses’ (the dominant breeders) when alternative nesting options are available.

The dominant wasps then compete to give the helper wasps the best deal by allowing them to work less hard, to ensure they stay in their particular nest.

Scientists believe this shows for the first-time that supply and demand theory can be used to understand helping behaviour in social insects.

Traditionally scientists thought factors within social groups, such as number of helpers and genetic relatedness, are what predominantly influences helping behaviour.

However the new findings show market forces in the whole population, such as the supply of outside options, can be used to predict insect behaviour.

Researcher Lena Grinsted said: “It is remarkable to discover that simply changing the wasps’ surrounding social environment has a clear effect on cooperative behaviour within groups.

“Our findings reveal intriguing parallels between wasp populations and our own business world.

“A bad deal is better than no deal so when competition increases so does the risk you have to accept a lower price for what you offer.

“Market forces can clearly affect trade agreements in nature, as they can in human markets: with a larger number of trading partners available, you can negotiate better trade deals.”

Paper wasps are up to one inch long and gather fibres from dead wood and plant stems, which they mix with saliva, and use to construct water-resistant nests made of grey or brown papery material.

The species is also also sometimes called umbrella wasps, due to the distinctive design of the nests.

The University of Sussex study, called “Market forces influence helping behaviour in cooperatively breeding paper wasps” has recently been published in the Nature Communications research journal.