Helping Behavior

Landabur, Rodrigo; Laborda, Mario A.; Míguez, Gonzalo; Wilson, Juan E.

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-55065-7_1370

Cited by 2 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…Behavioural correlates of a social mode of life include affiliative behaviour, a wide spectrum of non-aggressive (friendly) social contacts and interactions [1,2]. Theoretical and experimental research devoted to that issue involves the use of numerous synonymous notions such as prosocial behaviour (pro-sociality) [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14], cooperative behaviour (cooperation) [11,[15][16][17][18][19][20], altruistic behaviour (altruism) [11,16,17,[19][20][21][22][23][24], helping behaviour [3][4][5][16][17][18]25,26] and rescue behaviour [18][19][20][26][27][28][29][30]. The exact scopes of these notions are not easy to delineate, as they are not always defined in precisely the same way.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Do They Know What They Are Doing? Cognitive Aspects of Rescue Behaviour Directed by Workers of the Red Wood Ant Formica polyctena to Nestmate Victims Entrapped in Artificial Snares

Szczuka,

Sochacka-Marlowe,

Korczyńska

et al. 2024

Preprint

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Ant rescue behaviour belongs to the most interesting subcategories of prosocial and altruistic behaviour encountered in the animal world. Several studies suggested that ants are able to identify what exactly restrains the movements of another individual and to direct their rescue behaviour precisely to that object. To shed more light on the question how precise is the identifi-cation of the source of restraint of another ant, we investigated rescue behaviour of workers of the red wood ant Formica polyctena using a new version of an artificial snare bioassay in which a nestmate victim was bearing on its body two wire loops, one placed on the petiole and acting as a snare, and an additional one on the leg. The tested ants did not direct preferentially their rescue behaviour to the snare. Moreover, the overall strategy adopted by the most active rescuers was not limited to precisely targeted rescue attempts directed to the snare, but consisted of attempts to find a solution to the victim’s problem through frequent trial-and-error switching between various subcategories of rescue behaviour. These findings highlight the importance of precise identifica-tion of cognitive processes and overall behavioural strategies for better understanding of causal factors underlying animal helping behaviour.

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confidence: 99%

Do They Know What They Are Doing? Cognitive Aspects of Rescue Behaviour Directed by Workers of the Red Wood Ant Formica polyctena to Nestmate Victims Entrapped in Artificial Snares

Szczuka,

Sochacka-Marlowe,

Korczyńska

et al. 2024

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Do They Know What They Are Doing? Cognitive Aspects of Rescue Behaviour Directed by Workers of the Red Wood Ant Formica polyctena to Nestmate Victims Entrapped in Artificial Snares

Szczuka,

Sochacka-Marlowe,

Korczyńska

et al. 2024

Life

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Ant rescue behaviour belongs to the most interesting subcategories of prosocial and altruistic behaviour encountered in the animal world. Several studies suggested that ants are able to identify what exactly restrains the movements of another individual and to direct their rescue behaviour precisely to that object. To shed more light on the question of how precise the identification of the source of restraint of another ant is, we investigated rescue behaviour of red wood ant Formica polyctena workers, using a new version of an artificial snare bioassay in which a nestmate victim bore two wire loops on its body, one (acting as a snare) placed on its petiole and an additional one on its leg. The tested ants did not preferentially direct their rescue behaviour towards the snare. Moreover, the overall strategy adopted by the most active rescuers was not limited to precisely targeted rescue attempts directed towards the snare, but consisted of frequent switching between various subcategories of rescue behaviour. These findings highlight the importance of precise identification of cognitive processes and overall behavioural strategies for better understanding of causal factors underlying animal helping behaviour in light of new facts discovered by testing of various successive research hypotheses.

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Helping Behavior

Cited by 2 publications

References 9 publications

Do They Know What They Are Doing? Cognitive Aspects of Rescue Behaviour Directed by Workers of the Red Wood Ant Formica polyctena to Nestmate Victims Entrapped in Artificial Snares

Do They Know What They Are Doing? Cognitive Aspects of Rescue Behaviour Directed by Workers of the Red Wood Ant Formica polyctena to Nestmate Victims Entrapped in Artificial Snares

Do They Know What They Are Doing? Cognitive Aspects of Rescue Behaviour Directed by Workers of the Red Wood Ant Formica polyctena to Nestmate Victims Entrapped in Artificial Snares

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