Influence of social information on choice between two identical nests.

Colony groups were comprised of equally divided colonies (adults and brood) with queens in the ‘A’ colony. ‘Lead’ groups relocated followed by ‘follower’ groups, using the same navigation chamber (containing the pheromone trail). Navigation chambers were rotated 90° in some trials so that trails faced in the opposite direction for follower colonies. Choices are scored as ‘N’ or ‘S’ for north or south nest selected. Following the trail is indicated by the opposite choice in trials with rotation of the navigation chamber. The one instance where the ‘follower’ did not chose the same side as the ‘lead’ colony is shown in bold. ‘Na’ indicates data are not available. Follower relocations were of significantly shorter duration when the one outlier with a very long ‘lead’ time (colony 30 in “same colony with rotation” trials) was removed from the analysis (see main text). Times are given as hours:minutes.