Information Certainty Determines Social and Private Information Use in Ants
Details
Download: srep43607.pdf (988.47 [Ko])
State: Public
Version: Final published version
State: Public
Version: Final published version
Serval ID
serval:BIB_3AB3A5FC577A
Type
Article: article from journal or magazin.
Collection
Publications
Institution
Title
Information Certainty Determines Social and Private Information Use in Ants
Journal
Scientific Reports
ISSN
2045-2322
Publication state
Published
Issued date
2017
Peer-reviewed
Oui
Volume
7
Pages
43607
Language
english
Abstract
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
Yes
Create date
19/04/2017 8:34
Last modification date
20/08/2019 14:30