Abstract
When an antlion captures a foraging ant, the victim’s nestmates may display rescue behaviour. This study tested the hypothesis that the expression of rescue behaviour depends on the life expectancy of the captured ant. This hypothesis predicts that the expression of rescue behaviour will be less frequent when the captured ant has a lower life expectancy than when it has a higher life expectancy because such a response would be adaptive at the colony level. Indeed, significant differences were found in the frequency of rescue behaviours in response to antlion victims with differing life expectancies. In agreement with prediction, victims with lower life expectancies were rescued less frequently, and those rescues had a longer latency and shorter duration. There was also a qualitative difference in the behaviour of rescuers to victims from the low and high life expectancy groups. Several explanations for these findings are proposed.
Highlights
Foraging ants are faced with a serious threat from co-occurring trap-building antlion larvae because these predators are highly specialized for capturing terrestrial invertebrates [1]
The present study tested the hypothesis that the frequency of the expression of rescue behaviour is lower when the victim ants have a lower life expectancy than when they have a higher life expectancy
Exposure to CO2 is known to mimic accelerated ageing in insects [17] and may be used to study the active responses of ants to low life expectancy [8,13,15,16]
Summary
Foraging ants are faced with a serious threat from co-occurring trap-building antlion larvae because these predators are highly specialized for capturing terrestrial invertebrates [1]. The present study tested the hypothesis that the frequency of expression and characteristics of rescue behaviour exhibited by rescuer ants depend on the life expectancy of the victim ants. The rescue behaviour and life expectancy relationship may reflect the high colony-level cost to saving individuals with low life expectancy [10].
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