Social and individual learners use different pathways to success in an ant mini-society

Animals can acquire information through individual learning or by copying others. Simulations suggest that social learning is expected to lead to better rewards, but experimental studies confirming this remain scarce. We tested how a well-known form of social learning in ants, tandem running, affects individual foraging success of Temnothroax nylanderi foragers in controlled laboratory experiments. We manipulated the number and the variability of food sources and assessed the foraging choices of ants searching individually (i.e. scouts) or using social learning (i.e. recruits). We found that social learners indeed discovered better food sources than individual learners, but only in rich environments. However, social learners collected less food ([~]60% fewer foraging trips) than scouts during our trials. Interestingly, individual learners improved their success over time by switching food sources more frequently than social learners. These experimental findings highlight that the relative value of social and individual learning in an ant society depend on the foraging environment and show different temporal dynamics. The ability of individual learners to exploit profitable food sources through a strategy of food source switching, while avoiding the opportunity costs of social learning can help explain why many social insects, especially those living in small colonies, do not use communication in foraging.