UNASSIGNED: @entity9659 colonies are famous for using @entity2205 pheromones to make collective decisions. @entity2205 pheromone systems are characterised by positive feedback, which results in rapid decision making. However, in an iconic experiment ants were shown to become 'trapped' in exploiting a poor food source, if it was discovered earlier. This has conventionally been explained by the established @entity5681 @entity2205 becoming too strong for new trails to compete. However, many social insects have a well-developed memory, and private information often overrules conflicting social information. Thus, route memory could also explain this collective 'trapping' effect. Here we disentangle the effects of social and private information in two 'trapping' experiments; one in which ants are presented a good and poor food source, and one in which ants are presented a long and short path to the same food source. We find that private information is sufficient to trigger trapping in selecting the poorer of two food sources, and may be sufficient to cause it altogether. Memories did not trigger trapping in the shortest path experiment, likely as sufficiently detailed memories did not form. The fact that collective decisions can be triggered by private information alone may require other collective patterns previously attributed solely to social information use to be reconsidered.

Private information alone can trigger trapping of XXXX colonies in local feeding optima.

@entity2205 :: ('8743', 'Gene') :: ['trail', 'Trail'] @entity5681 :: ('CHEBI:26013', 'Chemical') :: ['pheromone'] @entity9659 :: ('293', 'Gene') :: ['Ant']
@entity9659 :: (293,Gene) :: ['ant']
