Information Certainty Determines Social and Private Information Use in Ants
Détails
Télécharger: srep43607.pdf (988.47 [Ko])
Etat: Public
Version: Final published version
Etat: Public
Version: Final published version
ID Serval
serval:BIB_3AB3A5FC577A
Type
Article: article d'un périodique ou d'un magazine.
Collection
Publications
Institution
Titre
Information Certainty Determines Social and Private Information Use in Ants
Périodique
Scientific Reports
ISSN
2045-2322
Statut éditorial
Publié
Date de publication
2017
Peer-reviewed
Oui
Volume
7
Pages
43607
Langue
anglais
Résumé
Decision-making in uncertain environments requires animals to evaluate, contrast and integrate various information sources to choose appropriate actions. In consensus-making groups, quorum responses are commonly used to combine private and social information, leading to both robust and flexible decisions. Here we show that in house-hunting ant colonies, individuals fine-tune the parameters of their quorum responses depending on their private knowledge: informed ants evaluating a familiar new nest rely relatively more on social than private information when the certainty of their private information is low, and vice versa. This indicates that the ants follow a highly sophisticated `copywhen-uncertain' social learning strategy similar to that observed in a few vertebrate species. Using simulations, we further show that this strategy improves colony performance during emigrations and confers well-informed individuals more weight in the decision process, thus representing a novel mechanism for the emergence of leadership in collective decision-making.
Web of science
Open Access
Oui
Création de la notice
19/04/2017 8:34
Dernière modification de la notice
20/08/2019 14:30