Fig. 1

Experimental design of staged contests. Colony pairs assigned to a high value food or b low value food were fed honey solution and tuna, respectively, for five days during the pre-feeding phase. On day six, each colony within the pair was fed either honey solution or tuna to confirm a compensatory foraging effect. A contest over food was then initiated (about 1 h later) between the colony pair by placing tuna onto the active display ground between the pair of colonies