Meeting Abstract
Ants rely on a combination of recent experience (private information) and signals from conspecifics (social information) to locate and exploit food resources. Theoretically there exists a tradeoff between the relative valuation of these kinds of information, as a strong bias for social information can lead to rapid exploitation of resources, but may result in non-optimal or inflexible resource selection. To better understand how reliance on social cues versus other forms of information affects foraging patterns, we measure trail following behavior and social interactions in two related species of species of Sonoran desert ants of the subfamily Dolichoderinae. Both species, Forelius mccooki and Dorymyrmex bicolor, form large colonies and use a combination of mass recruitment and individual retrieval in foraging. Here, we quantify subtle differences in social information use and autonomous foraging behavior between these species. To assess whether patterns of social information use correlate with investment in olfactory processing, we compare the antennal lobe of these two species with one another and with those of Dolichoderine species that rely more heavily on individual foraging behavior.
