Sequential Load Transport in Grass-Cutting Ants (Atta vollenweideri): Maximization of Plant Delivery Rate or Improved Information Transfer?

Table 1

Body mass (mg) of carriers in a transport chain and single carriers that transported fragments of different sizes: short, double or long fragments. Data are means ± SD; N numbers in brackets. Comparisons after Kruskal-Wallis-ANOVA.

	Short fragments	Double fragments	Long fragments
First carrier	8.7 ± 4.5 (26)	11.4 ± 6.1 (35)	12.7 ± 4.2 (25)
Last carrier	13.7 ± 9.3 (25)	15.5 ± 7.1 (36)	19.3 ± 10.7 (26)
Single carrier	12.1 ± 4.0 (18)	14.0 ± 7.6 (16)	16.7 ± 5.1 (21)
Kruskal-Wallis-ANOVA:	𝐻(2,69)=12.1	𝐻(2,87)=7.7	𝐻(2,72)=10.3
	𝑃<.005	𝑃<.05	𝑃<.01
Paired comparisons:
First vs. Single	𝐻(1,44)=8.4	𝐻(1,51)=1.4	𝐻(1,47)=5.8
	𝑃<.005	NS	𝑃<.05
First vs. Last	𝐻(1,51)=8.8	𝐻(1,71)=7.2	𝐻(1,51)=8.8
	𝑃<.005	𝑃<.01	𝑃<.005
Single vs. Last	𝐻(1,43)=0.002	𝐻(1,52)=1.8	𝐻(1,46)=0.3
	NS	NS	NS