Rescue behavior is observed when 1 individual provides help to another individual in danger. Most reports of rescue behavior concern ants (Formicidae), in which workers rescue each other from various types of entrapment. Many of these entrapment situations can be simulated in the laboratory using an entrapment bioassay, in which ants confront a single endangered nest mate entrapped on a sandy arena by means of an artificial snare. Here, we compared numerous characteristics of rescue actions (contact between individuals, digging around the entrapped individual, pulling at its body parts, transport of the sand covering it, and biting the snare entrapping it) in Formica cinerea ants. We performed entrapment tests in the field and in the laboratory, with the latter under varying conditions in terms of the number of ants potentially engaged in rescue actions and the arena substrate (marked or unmarked by ants’ pheromones). Rescue actions were more probable and pronounced in the field than in the laboratory, regardless of the type of test. Moreover, different test types in the laboratory yielded inconsistent results and showed noteworthy variability depending on the tested characteristic of rescue. Our results illustrate the specifics of ant rescue actions elicited in the natural setting, which is especially important considering the scarcity of field data. Furthermore, our results underline the challenges related to the comparison of results from different types of entrapment tests reported in the available literature. Additionally, our study shows how animal behavior differs in differing experimental setups used to answer the same questions.

中文翻译：

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蚂蚁营救动作诱发实验测试程序的比较分析

当一个人向另一个处于危险中的人提供帮助时，就会观察到救援行为。大多数关于救援行为的报道都涉及蚂蚁（蚁科），工蚁在蚂蚁科的各种陷阱中相互救援。许多这些诱捕情况可以在实验室中使用诱捕生物测定法进行模拟，其中蚂蚁通过人工诱捕器与被困在沙地竞技场上的单个濒临灭绝的巢穴交战。在这里，我们比较了灰胶蚁中救援行动的许多特征（个体之间的接触、在被困个体周围挖掘、拉动其身体部位、运输覆盖它的沙子以及咬住它的陷阱）。我们在现场和实验室进行了诱捕测试，后者在不同条件下可能参与救援行动的蚂蚁数量和竞技场基质（由蚂蚁的信息素标记或未标记）。无论测试类型如何，救援行动在现场比在实验室中更有可能和更明显。此外，实验室中不同的测试类型产生的结果不一致，并且根据所测试的救援特征显示出显着的变异性。我们的结果说明了在自然环境中引发的蚂蚁救援行动的细节，考虑到现场数据的稀缺，这一点尤为重要。此外，我们的结果强调了与现有文献中报告的不同类型诱捕测试结果比较相关的挑战。此外，