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preferred site. Once a critical population level or quorum at a candidate site has
been attained, the convergence rate to a single choice is then boosted by recruiters
who, instead of leading naive ants in tandem runs, simply transport them from
the old nest to the new one. While it has been shown that this quorum-activated
recruitment significantly speeds up convergence of the colony to the higher-quality
site,
3,31,32
the exact motivations for the quorum mechanism by the ants are not well
understood. However, the process itself is completely decentralized and results in
the formation of a consensus by the colony on which of the two candidate sites to
select as its new home.
This “house-hunting” process has