Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology最新文献

{"title":"Socioecological drivers of injuries and aggression in female and male rhesus macaques (<i>Macaca mulatta</i>).","authors":"Melissa A Pavez-Fox, Erin R Siracusa, Samuel Ellis, Clare M Kimock, Nahiri Rivera-Barreto, Josue E Negron-Del Valle, Daniel Phillips, Angelina Ruiz-Lambides, Noah Snyder-Mackler, James P Higham, Delphine De Moor, Lauren J N Brent","doi":"10.1007/s00265-025-03587-3","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s00265-025-03587-3","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Abstract: </strong>Competition over access to resources, such as food and mates, is one of the major costs associated with group living. Two socioecological factors believed to drive the intensity of competition are group size and sex ratio. However, empirical evidence linking these factors to physical aggression and injuries is scarce. Here, we leveraged 10 years of data from free-ranging female and male rhesus macaques to test whether group size and adult sex ratio predicted the risk of inter and intrasexual aggression, as well as injury risk. We found evidence for an optimal group size at which the risk of intragroup aggression was minimized for both sexes. Despite male-male aggression being lowest in mid-sized groups, males in smaller groups experienced higher injury risk, suggesting within-group aggression might not be the main cause of male injury. Additionally, we found that sex ratio influenced aggression, but not injury risk. Specifically, female aggression toward other females was heightened during the birth season when groups had fewer available males, suggesting either female competition for male friends or exacerbated female-female competition due to the energetic costs of lactation. Male aggression towards females was higher in female-biased groups during the birth season and in male-biased groups during the mating season, which could reflect male competition with females over feeding opportunities and male coercion of females, respectively. Together, these findings provide insights into fitness costs (i.e., injury risk) of inter and intrasexual competition in primates in relation to key aspects of social organization.</p><p><strong>Significance statement: </strong>While theory suggests that group size and sex ratio influence competition, studies linking these factors to aggression and injury rates are limited. Using long-term data on demography, aggression, and injury from a group-living primate, we show that both males and females experience aggression less often at intermediate group sizes. However, males in smaller groups faced higher injury risks. Although sex ratio did not predict injury risk, it did influence intra- and intersexual aggression, with patterns varying by reproductive season. Overall, our findings provide insights into how competition shapes intra and intersexual dynamics in relation to aspects of social organization.</p><p><strong>Supplementary information: </strong>The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00265-025-03587-3.</p>","PeriodicalId":8881,"journal":{"name":"Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology","volume":"79 3","pages":"47"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11953099/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143751001","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Cofeeding at rich clumped food patches in free-ranging dogs: social tolerance or scramble competition?","authors":"Andreas Berghänel, Martina Lazzaroni, Malgorzata Ferenc, Malgorzata Pilot, Ikhlass El Berbri, Sarah Marshall-Pescini, Friederike Range","doi":"10.1007/s00265-025-03590-8","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-025-03590-8","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Abstract: </strong>Animals are generally expected to monopolize food patches whenever possible. However, cofeeding within a defendable range occurs in many species, particularly at larger food patches, but the mechanism behind that remains underexplored. In theory, it could be due to multiple, mutually non-exclusive processes. First, larger food patches may saturate multiple top-ranking individuals, enabling cofeeding even under pure contest competition. Second, cofeeding may result from social tolerance where dominant individuals provide cofeeding concessions to certain subordinates. Third, cofeeding may result from prevailing scramble competition (i.e., indirect competition through patch exploitation) caused by large numbers of individuals that prevent monopolization (\"swamping\"). To investigate and differentiate between these mechanisms, we applied feeding tests to free-ranging dogs in Morocco. We provided them with a large food patch plus a varying number of small food patches. Although the small food patches were virtually always monopolized by single individuals, the dogs typically cofed in large and very dense feeding groups at the large food patches. Controlling for alternative explanations using multivariate statistics, we found that access to feeding groups was independently predicted by rank and social relationship strength, suggesting that contest competition and social tolerance play a role. However, aggression rates by top-rankers decreased with increasing feeding group size, suggesting decreasing monopolizability and increasing scramble competition. Our results underscore that social tolerance may not reduce competition but shifts it from contest to scramble competition. This can be due to active levelling, licensing more individuals access to the resource, but also to loss of control caused by swamping.</p><p><strong>Significance statement: </strong>Although animals are generally expected to fight for resources, they are sometimes observed to cofeed peacefully in large groups. Such peaceful cofeeding is typically ascribed to and taken as a measure of social tolerance, assuming that dominants overcome their impulse to monopolize and make concessions to lower-ranking group members. Alternatively, such large peaceful cofeeding groups may result from swamping where lower-ranking group members overrun dominants as a mob. In this scenario, the dominant individuals simply lose control. Fighting would be pointless and only make them lose feeding time and reduce their share while others are feeding. Studying feedings of free-ranging dogs, we show that aggression by dominants decreases with increasing feeding group size, which supports this alternative explanation and sheds new light on the emergence of cofeeding and social tolerance.</p><p><strong>Supplementary information: </strong>The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00265-025-03590-8.</p>","PeriodicalId":8881,"journal":{"name":"Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology","volume":"79 4","pages":"51"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11996968/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143957009","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Animal social networks are robust to changing association definitions.","authors":"Alex Hoi Hang Chan, Jamie Dunning, Kristina B Beck, Terry Burke, Heung Ying Janet Chik, Daniel Dunleavy, Tim Evans, André Ferreira, Babette Fourie, Simon C Griffith, Friederike Hillemann, Julia Schroeder","doi":"10.1007/s00265-025-03559-7","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s00265-025-03559-7","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The interconnecting links between individuals in an animal social network are often defined by discrete, directed behaviours, but where these are difficult to observe, a network link (edge) may instead be defined by individuals sharing a space at the same time, which can then be used to infer a social association. The method by which these associations are defined should be informed by the biological significance of edges, and therefore often vary between studies. Identifying an appropriate measure of association remains a challenge to behavioural ecologists. Here, we use automatically recorded feeder visit data from four bird systems to compare three methods to identify a social association: (1) strict time-window, (2) co-occurrence in a group, and (3) arrival-time. We tested the similarity of the resulting networks by comparing the repeatability and sensitivity of individuals' social traits (network degree, strength, betweenness). We found that networks constructed using different methods but applying similar, ecologically relevant definitions of associations based on individuals' spatio-temporal co-occurrence, showed similar characteristics. Our findings suggest that the different methods to construct animal social networks are comparable, but result in subtle differences driven by species biology and feeder design. We urge researchers to carefully evaluate the ecological context of their study systems when making methodological decisions. Specifically, researchers in ecology and evolution should carefully consider the biological relevance of an edge in animal social networks, and the implications of adopting different definitions.</p><p><strong>Supplementary information: </strong>The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00265-025-03559-7.</p>","PeriodicalId":8881,"journal":{"name":"Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology","volume":"79 2","pages":"26"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11802709/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143381637","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Is provisioning rate of parents and helpers influenced by the simulated presence of novel individuals?","authors":"D'Amelio B Pietro, Carlson V Nora, Tognetti Arnaud, Sentís Marina, Silva R Liliana, Rybak Fanny, Covas Rita, Doutrelant Claire","doi":"10.1007/s00265-024-03548-2","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s00265-024-03548-2","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Abstract: </strong>Cooperative behaviour is widespread in animals and is likely to be the result of multiple selective pressures. A contentious hypothesis is that helping enhances the probability of obtaining a sexual partner (i.e., confers direct benefits through sexual selection). Under this hypothesis, cooperative behaviours may have evolved into a signal. Consequently, we would expect individuals to enhance cooperation when a potential mate is present, to signal their status and quality. We evaluated this possibility in the cooperatively breeding sociable weaver (<i>Philetairus socius</i>). We simulated the presence of different types of individuals using a playback to test whether the simulated presence of an unknown individual, possibly a potential mate, increases provisioning rate in two classes of cooperating birds : breeders and helpers. If the signal is the provisioning rate in itself we expected increased feeding rates of male helpers during the simulated presence of an unknown female. Contrary to our predictions, the simulated presence in the audience of an unknown individual did not influence the nestling provisioning rate of birds of any sex and class. From these results, we conclude that in this species the variation in provisioning rate is unlikely to be used as a signal in a sexual selection context. However, we also highlight the limitations of our methods and suggest improvements that future studies should incorporate when testing audience effects on cooperation.</p><p><strong>Significance statement: </strong>Animals may cooperate to gain direct benefits, like attracting mates. This happens for example in humans. In species where cooperation leads to direct sexual benefits, when the appropriate audience is present, (i.e., a potential mate), helpers should enhance their cooperation. To determine whether helping to raise others' young varies according to who is watching, we used playbacks to simulate the presence of unknown individuals of opposite sex (potential mates) while helpers were feeding young. Helping, quantified here as number of times food was brought to the chicks over an hour, was not affected by the simulated audience. We concluded that in sociable weavers variation in provisioning rate is unlikely to be a signal to obtain direct sexual benefits.</p><p><strong>Supplementary information: </strong>The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00265-024-03548-2.</p>","PeriodicalId":8881,"journal":{"name":"Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology","volume":"79 1","pages":"14"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11735550/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142999489","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Collective behavior diverges independently of the benthic-limnetic axis in stickleback.","authors":"Kevin M Neumann, Lucas Eckert, Damaris Miranda, Andrew Kemp, Alison M Bell","doi":"10.1007/s00265-025-03599-z","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-025-03599-z","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Comparing populations across replicate environments or habitat types can help us understand the role of ecology in evolutionary processes. If similar phenotypes are favored in similar environments, parallel evolution may occur. Collective behavior, including collective movement and social networks, can play a key role in the adaptation by animals to different environments. However, studies exploring the parallelism of collective behavior are limited, with research traditionally focusing on morphological traits. Here, we asked if collective behavior varies consistently across replicate populations of benthic and limnetic three-spined stickleback (<i>Gasterosteus aculeatus</i>). There were repeatable, population-level differences in collective behavior in a common garden experiment, with some populations forming groups that were more cohesive and with higher strength and clustering coefficients. However, these differences were not predicted by ecotype (benthic vs. limnetic). Latency to emerge and morphology did consistently differ between ecotypes, and there were no correlations between these traits and collective behavior. Together, these results suggest that collective behavior diverges, but not in a way that is associated with variation along the benthic-limnetic axis. By examining multiple traits, we show how phenotypic evolution can be occurring in parallel and non-parallel ways at the same time. This study further highlights that the classification of habitat types may only be relevant for certain traits, with collective behavior potentially changing in a more nuanced manner.</p><p><strong>Supplementary information: </strong>The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00265-025-03599-z.</p>","PeriodicalId":8881,"journal":{"name":"Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology","volume":"79 5","pages":"56"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12058956/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143969082","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Juveniles of a biparental cichlid fish compensate lack of parental protection by improved shoaling performance","authors":"Maren Annika Zacke, Timo Thünken","doi":"10.1007/s00265-024-03517-9","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-024-03517-9","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Parental brood care greatly affects offspring’s fitness, but the specific effects of care on the collective behaviour of independent offspring are less well understood. It has been suggested that the loss of care induces increased sibling cooperation to compensate parental contributions. However, the empirical evidence is ambiguous. Here, we examined how the loss of early parental care affects the collective behaviour, i.e. shoaling performance of independent juveniles in a genetically heterogeneous lab-population of the biparental cichlid fish <i>Pelvicachromis pulcher</i>. Applying a split-clutch design, we reared in- and outbred offspring with or without parents. In the experiment, we examined shoal density (inter-individual distance) in relation to body size of the shoaling fish. Dense shoaling reduces predation risk and small fish may benefit strongest because they are particularly vulnerable to predation by gape-limited predators. Juveniles reared without parents formed denser shoals and they adjusted shoaling behaviour depending on own body size compared to juveniles reared with parents; especially smaller fish formed dense shoals. Inbreeding did not significantly affect shoaling performance. This indicates that juveniles compensate missing parental care by adjusting their shoaling behaviour depending on own vulnerability. Our study contributes to the understanding of the co-evolution of brood care and sibling cooperation.</p>","PeriodicalId":8881,"journal":{"name":"Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology","volume":"32 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2024-09-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142254721","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A behavioral syndrome of competitiveness in a non-social rodent","authors":"Filippa Erixon, Jana A. Eccard, Rika Huneke, Melanie Dammhahn","doi":"10.1007/s00265-024-03510-2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-024-03510-2","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Animals compete for limited resources such as food, mating partners, and territory. The outcome of this intraspecific competition should be determined by individual variation in behavioral traits, such as aggressiveness and dominance status. Consistent among-individual differences in behavior likely contribute to competitiveness and predispose individuals to acquire specific dominance ranks during parts of their adult life. Nevertheless, how dominance rank is correlated with animal personality traits remains largely unclear. In a first step towards better understanding these functional links, we studied trait integration into behavioral syndromes, using 26 captive male bank voles (<i>Myodes glareolus</i>). We repeatedly assessed boldness in an emergence test, exploration in an open-field test, aggressiveness in staged dyadic encounters, and the among-individual correlations between these behaviors. We further related these personality traits to dominance rank, from quantifying urine marking value (UMV), as marking in bank voles is related to dominance rank. We found repeatable variations in boldness, exploration, aggressiveness, and UMV, which were correlated at the among-individual level. Aggressiveness tended to be negatively correlated with body condition, a proxy for fitness. Thus, key personality traits and social rank are functionally integrated into a behavioral syndrome of intraspecific competitiveness. By joining social and non-social aspects of personality, our findings contribute to the ecological validation of personality traits and suggest how they contribute to higher-order component traits, such as dominance which directly affect fitness components.</p>","PeriodicalId":8881,"journal":{"name":"Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology","volume":"98 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2024-08-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142215217","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Three yellow patches differently correlate with escape behaviour, morphological traits, leukocytes, parasites, and hormones in a lizard species","authors":"José Antonio de los Ríos-Solera, Rodrigo Megía-Palma, Alex Tarriza, Sara Blázquez-Castro, Rafael Barrientos, Isabel Barja","doi":"10.1007/s00265-024-03515-x","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-024-03515-x","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Multiple within individual and non-redundant signals can convey complementary information about individual quality in lizards. This visual information is commonly provided by colour patches of different hues (red, yellow, blue). However, whether different within-individual colour patches of a single hue can contain non-redundant information remains understudied. To test this idea, we investigated the spectrophotometric reflectance of three colour patches in adult males of <i>Acanthodactylus erythrurus</i>, a lizard of the family Lacertidae that has colour patches that look similarly yellow to the human eye. We modelled the spectral variables of these patches using model averaging and cross-validation as a function of head volume and body length (proxies of resource allocation to somatic growth), escape behaviour (proxy of quality to cope with stress), body condition (proxy of nutritional state), leukocytic profiles (proxy of immune state), and faecal testosterone metabolites (proxy of reproductive state and aggression). The different relationships of the three “yellow” patches with the independent predictors analysed suggested that they can provide complementary information about the males’ quality in the context of the sexual selection theory.</p>","PeriodicalId":8881,"journal":{"name":"Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology","volume":"98 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2024-08-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142215058","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Research disturbance negatively impacts incubation behaviour of female great tits","authors":"Léanne Clemencin, Emilio Barba, David Diez-Méndez","doi":"10.1007/s00265-024-03514-y","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-024-03514-y","url":null,"abstract":"<h3 data-test=\"abstract-sub-heading\">Abstract</h3><p>Human-induced disturbance is perceived by avian species as a predation risk. However, the anti-predatory behaviour triggered by these non-lethal events can have negative impacts on reproduction and offspring survival. Research on breeding birds often involves visits to their nests and is likely to disrupt parental behaviour, but nest visits that do not involve direct handling of females have been overlooked as important disturbance events. This study focuses on the impacts of short visits to the nest of incubating Great tit <i>(Parus major</i>) females. We investigated how long they stay away from the nest (off-bout) after a disturbance, their possible compensatory behaviour once they resume incubation (on-bout), and the effects on daily incubation rhythms. We used three years of data from two breeding populations to assess the consequences of disturbances in two scenarios: when the female is present in the nest and flushed, and when the female is absent. We found that after a disturbance, the immediate off-bout was longer when the female was either present or absent, with the magnitude of the disturbance being greater when females were flushed. Females did not compensate with longer on-bouts afterwards, i.e. the research disturbance altered daily incubation behaviour by reducing the total time spent on the nest in relation to the number of daily disturbance events. Females that alter their behaviour in response to perceived predation risk would perform longer incubation periods, resulting in lower hatching rates. These effects of research on female behaviour should be considered when planning field experiments.</p><h3 data-test=\"abstract-sub-heading\">Significance statement</h3><p>Incubating birds react to human activity near their nests by changing their behaviour. This may also apply to basic research activities, but we have no data on how a visit, e.g., to check clutch size, affects them. To find out, we classified data from routine research visits to great tit nests, which are often used for research in the wild, into long and short visits. We also considered whether a female was incubating or foraging outside the nest during the visit. We found that females tended to stay away from the nest longer after they encounter a researcher, and after longer visits. Our results show that even slight research activities in the nest alters female incubation behaviour. They flee and leave the clutch unattended for longer, changing the thermal environment of the nest, which is crucial for proper embryo development.</p>","PeriodicalId":8881,"journal":{"name":"Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology","volume":"10 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2024-08-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142215220","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Injury-dependent wound care behavior in the desert ant Cataglyphis nodus","authors":"Narmin I. Beydizada, Antonia Abels, Patrick Schultheiss, Erik T. Frank","doi":"10.1007/s00265-024-03511-1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-024-03511-1","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Ants often face injuries during foraging, or interspecific competition, elevating infection risk and mortality among the wounded. To avoid this, ants engage in wound care on injured nestmates as a form of social immunity. In this study, we show that <i>Cataglyphis nodus</i> desert ants perform differentiated wound care behavior, depending on wound location and state. Leg-injured ants received significantly more wound care than antenna-injured ants. However, leg wounds with induced infections received barely any wound care from nestmates, leading to similar levels of mortality in isolation and inside the nest. Instead, such leg-infected ants were mainly found outside of the nest. Infections of antennal wounds showed no change in the level of wound care, nor increased mortality. Our results suggest that the level of wound care in ants can be flexibly adjusted to the perceived mortality risk of injuries. Leg injuries pose a greater risk of infection and mortality compared to antennal injuries, likely because of the larger wound area and increased vascular circulation, necessitating intensive prophylactic care to prevent infection. This study is the first to show wound care in <i>Cataglyphis</i> ants, despite their short lifespan, and offers significant insights into social immunity mechanisms.</p>","PeriodicalId":8881,"journal":{"name":"Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology","volume":"8 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2024-08-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142215085","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}