Thus in times of food dearth, foragers can recruit specifically for poor food sources and non-specifically for rich food sources. Modeling I am interested in these alternative communication strategies because they suggest that there is a cost to communication. Furthermore, this cost may partially explain why so few complex representational communication systems exist. Yet the forest is filled with social bees who thrive with extremely simple recruitment systems alongside bees with more complex systems. In a preliminary mathematical model, I have hypothesized that one cost is time.
More accurate communication requires the transfer of more information.
Thus a forager can spend more time inside the hive and communicate the food source's precise location or spend minimal time inside the hive and simply alert other foragers to the presence of food outside the hive. Another cost comes from the effect of signal degradation in a noisy environment. Complex, informative signals are more easily garbled by noise than simple, low-information signals and, in certain situations, it may profit the colony for foragers to broadcast a simple search command that can reach a wide audience rather than complex directions intelligible to relatively few individuals. Both factors may account for the paradoxical alternative communication strategies of M. panamica, and I am currently working on an information theory model of these strategies. Potential mechanisms for the communication of height and distance by a stingless bee, Melipona panamica .