Destruction of Spiderwebs and Rescue of Ensnared Nestmates by a Granivorous Desert Ant (<i>Veromessor pergandei</i>)

Kwapich, Christina L.; Hölldobler, Bert

doi:10.1086/704338

Cited by 19 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 44 publications

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“…Why rescue in particular might be an important part of C. piliscapa ants' colony structure remains to be investigated. One possibility, however, is that rescue of nestmates likely preserves a critical colony size as has been suggested in two other species of ants (Frank et al, 2017;Kwapich & Hölldobler, 2019), a topic to which we return in the General Discussion.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 90%

Rescue specialists in Cataglyphis piliscapa ants: The nature and development of ant first responders

et al. 2021

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Previous research in our laboratories has demonstrated that, within each colony of Cataglyphis piliscapa (formerly C. cursor) ants, only some individuals are capable of performing a complex sequence of behavioral patterns to free trapped nestmates-a sequence that not only is memory-dependent but also is responsive to the particular circumstances of that entrapment and how the rescue operation unfolds. Additionally, this rescue behavior is inherited patrilineally from but a few of the many males that fertilize the eggs of the colony's single queen. Here, we describe three experiments to explore rescue behavior further-namely, whether rescuers are in any way selective about which nestmates they help, how the age of rescuers and the victims that they help affect the quantity and quality of the rescue operation, and when this complex behavior first emerges in an ant's development. Taken together with the previous heritability analysis, these behavioral experiments provide clear evidence that the ability to rescue nestmates in distress should be recognized as a specialization, which together with other specialized tasks in C. piliscapa, contributes to a division of labor that increases the efficiency of the colony as a whole and, thus increases its reproductive success.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 90%

Rescue specialists in Cataglyphis piliscapa ants: The nature and development of ant first responders

et al. 2021

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Section: Overview Of Work On Rescue Behavior In Antsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Two other studies reported yet another context of rescue behavior in ants [ 52 , 53 ]. Desert seed harvester ants Veromessor pergandei were found to dismantle spider webs, retrieve ensnared individuals from such webs and groom away the silk that entangled them [ 52 ]. The authors found that under natural conditions, nestmates caught in the web significantly enhanced the probability of ants’ removal of that web (i.e., pulling at it, causing it to lose its structure) from the proximity of the foraging trail.…”

Section: Overview Of Work On Rescue Behavior In Antsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It is clear that rescue behavior occurs in distantly related ant species ( Table 1 ), which makes it likely that it evolved multiple times, but its prevalence in related species is currently difficult to assess. Moreover, rescue actions have been reported for only three ecological contexts, namely, hunting injury [ 49 , 51 ], spider predation [ 52 , 53 ] and, more anecdotally, burial under the substrate or debris. In terms of antlion predation and rescue actions as an antipredatory strategy of ants in response to selective pressures imposed on them by antlions, this has not been satisfactorily demonstrated to date, and the fact that some ants display rescue in this context might even be an artefact.…”

Section: Identifying Research Gapsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the fourth category, the balance of costs and benefits of engagement in rescue behavior surely needs extensive research attention. Except for a few observations of the death of an individual performing rescue action [ 27 , 35 , 52 ], the costs of rescue behavior are more often assumed than explored experimentally (but see [ 49 ] and [ 52 ] for calculations of wasted opportunities under no rescue directed towards individuals in need of help). These assumed costs of rescue involve, for instance, time spent otherwise on tasks such as food collection.…”

Section: Identifying Research Gapsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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“O Sister, Where Art Thou?”—A Review on Rescue of Imperiled Individuals in Ants

Miler

Turza

2021

Biology

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Altruism is defined as an action that decreases the lifetime direct fitness of an actor and benefits one or more recipients. This phenomenon, which is generally difficult to understand and explain, requires special research attention. The subject of this review, rescue, is a type of altruistic behavior in which the actor puts itself at risk to save another individual, the recipient, that is in danger. The highest numbers of published empirical works have been devoted to rescue behavior in ants and they have enormous potential for further study. We review studies devoted to the subject and group them into four main areas of research on ant rescue actions: (1) variation in rescue behavior activity on a between-individual scale, (2) factors contributing to the evolution of rescue behavior on a between-species scale, (3) rescue behavior releaser signals and (4) rescue behavior benefits and costs. We highlight the progress in research on rescue behavior in ants, indicate that this behavior is probably much more common than previously thought yet thus far demonstrated in only a few species, and uncover research gaps and open questions that remain unexplored. We additionally point out some gaps in knowledge that become evident when research devoted to rescue behavior in rats, the second most studied group of animals in this context, is briefly overviewed. We hope to help navigate among studies on rescue behavior and provide the most up-to-date summary of the relevant literature. Moreover, we hope to encourage and facilitate researchers in behavioral ecology and other subdisciplines to further experimentally analyze rescue behavior, not only in ants but also in other taxa.

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