Recruitment is a fundamental feature of animal societies and its efficiency largely depends on within-group communication. Insect societies are often populous and decentralised decisions need to be made by individuals with limited local information when time is of the essence. Recruitment of colony members to food, defence or to a new nest fall under this category. Colony relocation in tandem running ants is a particularly important case where only a small number of leaders possess information about the new nest and time is crucial, as longer exposure is detrimental to the colony’s survival and reproduction. We investigated the programmes and positional effects of individual members during relocation of the Indian tropical ant Diacamma indicum in their natural habitat. Analysis of more than 1000 transports across eight relocating colonies reveals that they have a path efficiency of 85%. We found that transporters reoriented towards the target nest within seconds of initiation and tandem running in this species is so well organised that over 97% of transports reached their target nest without facing any interruption indicating that the communication between leaders and followers was exceptional. With an average speed of 3.8 cm per second these are the fastest tandem running ants recorded. We used mixed-effects model to understand the effect of patch heterogeneity and transport type on the speed and path efficiency of these ants and found that tandem leaders reduced their speed when traversing grassy patches and relied upon the slower coupled adult-brood transport. This investigation of ants performing tandem runs through heterogeneous terrains showcases the exceptionally efficient recruitment dynamics during colony relocation. In the next step, similar studies in the context of foraging and guarding in the natural habitat will be required to fully appreciate the recruitment capabilities of these superorganisms.

招聘是动物社会的基本特征，其效率在很大程度上取决于群体内部的沟通。昆虫社会经常是人口众多的地方，在时间紧迫的情况下，需要由当地信息有限的人来做出分散决策。属于食物，防御或新巢的殖民地成员的招募属于这一类。串联蚂蚁中的殖民地迁移是一个特别重要的案例，因为只有很少的领导者掌握有关新巢的信息，而时间很关键，因为长时间接触会不利于殖民地的生存和繁殖。我们调查了印度热带蚂蚁Diacamma indicum搬迁期间各个成员的计划和位置影响在他们的自然栖息地。对八个搬迁殖民地中1000多个运输工具的分析表明，它们的路径效率为85％。我们发现运输者在启动后几秒钟内重新定向到目标巢，并且该物种的串联运行是如此有序，以至于超过97％的运输到达其目标巢而没有受到任何干扰，这表明领导者和追随者之间的沟通异常出色。这些蚂蚁的平均速度为每秒3.8厘米，是记录中最快的串联蚂蚁。我们使用混合效应模型来了解斑块异质性和运输类型对这些蚂蚁的速度和路径效率的影响，并发现纵排领导者在穿越草丛时降低了速度，并依赖较慢的成年母猪运输。对蚂蚁在异质地形中进行串联运动的研究表明，在殖民地迁移过程中，蚂蚁的募集动力学极为有效。下一步，将需要在自然栖息地觅食和保护方面进行类似的研究，以充分认识这些超生物体的募集能力。