Data from: Functional heterogeneity facilitates effectual collective task performance in a worker-polymorphic ant

Effective coordination of group actions underlies the success of
group-living organisms. Recent studies of animal personality have shown
that groups composed of individuals with different behavioral propensities
can outperform uniform groups in a range of different tasks, but we have
only a rudimentary understanding of how differences in individual behavior
influence the behavior of the group as a whole. In this study, we use
natural variation in behavioral propensity among morphologically distinct
worker castes of the small carpenter ant Camponotus yamaokai to shed new
light on this. Iterative testing indicated that ants displayed consistent
behavioral differences among individuals and between castes, with major
workers exhibiting a lower exploratory tendency than minors. By
constructing groups of different caste composition and quantifying their
performance in the task of colony emigration, we show that group
performance is an asymmetric humped function of caste ratio, with optimal
performance achieved by groups with natural caste ratios. Using a
simulation model based on our empirical data, we demonstrate that
inter-individual differences in social attraction and exploratory tendency
are sufficient to explain the observed patterns. Our results provide new
insights into how group performance in collective tasks can vary with
group composition.