Injury is common in nature resulting, for example, from fighting, partial predation, or the wear of body parts. Injury is costly, expressed in impaired performance, failure in competition, and a shorter life span. A survey of the literature revealed the frequent occurrence of injury in ants and its various causes. We examined whether leg or antenna injury impacts food-discovery time and reduces the likelihood of reaching food in workers of the desert ant Cataglyphis niger. We examined the search-related consequences of injury in groups of either 4 or 8 workers searching for food in a short arena, a long arena, and a maze. We conducted a small field survey to evaluate the prevalence of injury in the studied population. Finally, we compared the survival rates of injured versus uninjured workers in the laboratory. Injury was common in the field, with almost 9% of the workers collected out of the nest, found to be injured. Injured workers survived shorter than uninjured ones and there was a positive link between injury severity and survival. However, we could not detect an effect of injury on any of the searching-related response variables, neither in the arenas nor in the mazes tested. We suggest that workers that survive such injury are only moderately affected by it.

中文翻译：

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Cataglyphis 蚂蚁的腿或触角损伤会损害生存，但不会妨碍寻找食物

伤害在自然界中很常见，例如，由打斗、部分捕食或身体部位磨损造成的。伤害代价高昂，表现为表现受损、竞争失败和寿命缩短。一项文献调查揭示了蚂蚁受伤的频繁发生及其各种原因。我们检查了腿或触角受伤是否会影响食物发现时间，并降低沙漠蚂蚁 Cataglyphis niger 工人获得食物的可能性。我们检查了 4 或 8 名工人在一个短竞技场、一个长竞技场和一个迷宫中寻找食物的群体中与寻找相关的伤害后果。我们进行了一项小型实地调查，以评估研究人群中受伤的患病率。最后，我们比较了实验室中受伤工人和未受伤工人的存活率。受伤在战场上很常见，几乎有 9% 的工人从巢穴中收集出来，发现他们受伤了。受伤工人的存活时间比未受伤的工人短，并且受伤严重程度与存活率之间存在正相关关系。然而，我们无法检测到损伤对任何与搜索相关的响应变量的影响，无论是在竞技场还是在测试的迷宫中。我们建议在这种伤害中幸存下来的工人只会受到中等程度的影响。