 Cooperation provides survival benefits; multiple-foundress groups are more likely to survive to produce offspring than are single-foundress groups, and individual foundresses in multiple-foundress colonies are less likely to disappear before worker emergence than foundresses nesting alone.Therefore, association provides significant productivity and survival advantages for cooperating foundresses.Cooperation provides survival benefits only if individual foundresses on a multiple-foundress nest have a greater chance of survival than individuals that found nests alone or the foundress' contribution to the nest is preserved even after she leaves.