What use are wasps to the environment?

Question

I see wasps flying all around my hedges, and it dawned on me that they seem to have no use in the environment. Even a fly, helps keep the world clean. I was wondering if anyone knew of any uses of wasps.

Answer 1

Most wasp species are predators. Their function is in the control of many other insect species. They are actually very effective parasitoids, and because of this efficiency they have been used for decades as biological control agents. Many crop pests including hornworms and scale insects which cost millions of dollars in loss annulally are controled by wasps. Without these predators, tomatoes, oranges, tobacco, and many other important crops would be so scarce that the price of them would skyrocket.
Their method of efficiency is that they will lay one egg on the back of a caterpillar, and throught the process of polyembrony, the egg multiplies itself, producing hundreds of larvae. These larvae hatch, kill the caterpillar, and pupate. Once development is compltete, the newly formed wasps will emerge and go out in search of their own caterpillar to deposit eggs on. After a year, there are millions of these wasps and they are naturally able to control the number of potentially devastating pest species.
In nature, most moths and beetles have some species of wasp that is their specific parasitoid. Without these parasitoids, longhorn beetles would reduce the forest to sawdust and caterpillars would strip every leaf off of every plant they can find. Wasps act to control theri numbers, and keep a balance between the pests and the hosts.
I hope that answers your question!

The wasp you saw was probably looking for a caterpillar or spider to deposit an egg on......

Answer 2

Although many wasp species are parasitic, laying their eggs in other insects, the wasps people generally think of as wasps (yellowjackets, hornets) are not parasites.

These wasps are eusocial insects, and only the queen of the hive reproduces. She lays her eggs inside the nest, and the workers (who are all the queen's daughters) help to raise them.

Yellowjackets and hornets gather meat and other proteins for the developing larvae back in the hive, and subsist primarily on nectar for themselves. In gathering meat, the yellowjackets will take large numbers of caterpillars, beetles, and flies, killing them and bringing them back to the hive to feed the little ones. In large outbreaks of caterpillars like forest tent caterpillars, you can even see wasps coming up and carrying away hundreds of caterpillars.

These important predators help to keep numbers of pest caterpillars, flies and other insects down. They may also do some pollination as they visit flowers to feed on nectar, but they probably aren't as important for this role as their relatives, the honeybees.

But the primary use for yellowjackets and hornets in the environment is to make more yellowjackets and hornets. There is no other purpose to the existence of any organism.

Answer 3

Like most species, wasps exist to reproduce. However, they also have a wider purpose as predators. Wasps are critically important in natural biocontrol. Almost every pest insect species has a wasp species that is predator or parasite upon it. Parasitic wasps are also increasingly used in agricultural pest control.

Answer 4

Thank you BEETLE, for a fantastic answer to this. In support of this

"Wasps attacking beetles may save dying eucalyptus trees

STANFORD -- After five years of losing scores of eucalyptus trees on campus to a pest borer beetle, biologists and Stanford grounds managers have found an effective way to stem the demise of the hundred-year-old trees: they are fighting the bad predator bug with a good predator bug..."