By Susan Milius
Rock ants don’t tweet, but they do recruit followers. And that social input can change the outcome of a group decision.
Colonies of Temnothorax albipennis ants decide as a group which small craggy crevice to move into. They can even compare averages of a sort when choosing between nests that stay comfy for different proportions of time, an earlier study found. Yet those choices based on comparing averages turn out differently if ants start leading nest mates over to check out appealing sites, researchers say in an upcoming issue of Behavioral Ecology.