Ants work harder during consensus decision making in small groups

Individuals derive many benefits from being social, one of which is improved accuracy of decision-making, the so called ‘wisdom of the crowds ’ effect. This advantage arises because larger groups can pool information from more individuals. At present, limited empirical data indicate that larger groups out-perform smaller ones during consensus decision making in human and non-human animals. Inaccurate decisions can lead to significant costs, and we might therefore expect individuals in small groups to employ mechanisms to compensate for the lack of numbers. Small groups may be able to maintain decision accuracy if individuals are better informed than those in larger groups and/or by increasing the proportion of the group involved in collective decision making relative to larger groups. In this study, we use interactive computer vision software to investigate individual contributions to consensus decision making during house-hunting in different sized groups of the ant Myrmecina nipponica. We show that individuals in small colonies invest greater effort in the consensus decision process than those in large colonies and should be better-informed as a result. This may act to ameliorate the limitations of group size, but could leave smaller groups more susceptible to additional stresses