fuscatus have slowly altered to that of P. dominula. A few possible factors contribute to the prevalence of P. dominula over P. fuscatus, specifically in settling into a territory. Some of the factors include productive colony cycle, short developmental time, aposematic coloration, a generalist diet, and the ability to colonize new environments. Colony cycle P. dominula colonies are established by females that have left their natal combs to mate and find new settlements. These "foundresses" use three major strategies to establish new colonies, including building a nest by herself, finding "associate foundresses" to build the nest together, and sitting and waiting for the original foundress to leave the nest and then displace her. Once the foundresses have settled, the "founding phase" is over and is followed by the "worker phase", where the first generation of offspring are produced and grow as workers. P. dominula appears to have relatively high colony productivity as compared to other Polistes species. In matched comparisons of field colonies in Michigan, single foundress colonies of P. dominula were four to five times as productive as the colony cycle of P. fuscatus. In North America, P. dominula was significantly more productive than comparable colonies of the native Polistes metricus. Short development time The relatively high productivity of P. dominula may be correlated to the timing of its brood development. Compared to that of other Polistes species, P. dominula brood developmental period is much shorter. For instance, P. dominula produces its first workers much earlier than the native P. metricus, a native North American species. Similarly, when compared to P. fuscatus, P. dominula workers were produced about 6 days earlier even when their egg-hatching dates were the same. This indicated that the development times for the larvae and pupae, though not the eggs, were significantly shorter in P. dominula than in P. fuscatus. The precise reasons that P. dominula has such shorter brood development times are unknown, but a number of conjectures are offered. At the mechanical level, both genetic factors (e.g., smaller adult body size) and environmental influences (e.g., higher provisioning levels) may play a role. In a different aspect, the selection pressure exerted by the European social parasites such as Polistes sulcifer and Polistes semenowi might have caused the developmental times in P. dominula to be shorter. Because these parasites normally attack the host nests just prior to worker emergence, it would be advantageous for P.