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“Carl Anderson and his colleagues have discussed several advantages and disadvantages of a chain transport of harvest to nests, as in Atta vollenweideri, where the last carriers cover the longest distance.73 The researchers argue that such task partitioning can be expected to enhance the work efficiency of individuals, because workers are more likely to become specialists when deployed sequentially. As a consequence, the colony’s overall rate of resource retrieval should be higher. But again, the empirical data do not entirely support these theoretical considerations. Finally, Jacqueline Röschard and Flavio Roces have proposed a second hypothesis: that the transport chains of Atta vollenweideri accelerate transfer of information about the plant species and food quality of the harvest.74 They argue that the dropping of fragments on the trail allows cutting workers to quickly return to their tasks.”
― Bert Hölldobler, The Leafcutter Ants: Civilization by Instinct