Eusocial insects depend on their colonies, and it is therefore clear why isolation triggers many negative effects on isolated individuals. Here, we examined the effect of social isolation on the desert ant Cataglyphis niger, asking whether isolation, either with access to food or under starvation, impairs survival, and whether isolation modifies movement activity and digging to bypass an obstacle. Social isolation led to shorter survival but only when food was provided. This effect might be due to food not being digested correctly under isolation. Although isolated ant workers were more active immediately post isolation than 2−24 hours later, their movement moderately increased two days post isolation. We suggest that the changes in movement activity are adaptive: first, the worker increases activity intended to reunite it with the lost colony. Then, when the colony is not found, it reduces activity to conserve energy. It later increases activity as a final attempt to detect the colony. We expected isolated workers to dig faster to bypass an obstacle, but we did not detect any effect on digging behavior. We demonstrate here the complex effects of isolation on survival and movement activity, in interaction with additional factors – feeding and isolation duration.

真社会性昆虫依赖于它们的群体，因此很清楚为什么孤立会对孤立的个体造成许多负面影响。在这里，我们研究了社会隔离对沙漠蚂蚁Cataglyphis niger 的影响，询问隔离，无论是获得食物还是饥饿，是否会损害生存，以及隔离是否会改变运动活动和挖掘以绕过障碍物。社会孤立导致生存期缩短，但仅限于提供食物时。这种影响可能是由于食物在隔离下没有被正确消化。尽管与隔离后 2-24 小时相比，隔离后的蚂蚁工蚁立即更活跃，但隔离后两天它们的活动量适度增加。我们建议运动活动的变化是适应性的：首先，工人增加了旨在将其与丢失的群体重新团聚的活动。然后，当没有发现菌落时，它会减少活动以保存能量。后来它增加了活动，作为检测菌落的最后尝试。我们希望孤立的工人能够更快地绕过障碍物，但我们没有发现对挖掘行为有任何影响。我们在这里展示了隔离对生存和运动活动的复杂影响，与其他因素相互作用——喂养和隔离持续时间。