insectscience

Insectes Sociaux becomes PCI-friendly: what does this mean?

/ Damien Gergonne / Leave a comment

The scientific journal Insectes Sociaux has become “PCI-friendly” in partnership with Peer Community In (https://peercommunityin.org/) — an opportunity to speed up and increase the transparency of peer review, without automatic acceptance. Joël Meunier, who initiated the rapprochement between the journal and PCI, explains what this entails.

Logo of PCI. Simple derivative work of Martin Grandjean: A force-based network visualization – http://martingrandjean.ch/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Graphe3.png (CC-BY-SA-2.0)

IS: Hello Joël, could you introduce yourself ?

Sure! I’m a CNRS researcher at the University of Tours, France, where I explore how social life evolves in insects. After completing a PhD on ants in Lausanne, I shifted my focus more than 15 years ago to earwigs — which, despite their modest reputation, have surprisingly rich and fascinating family and social behaviors. I’ve been serving as an associate editor for Insectes Sociaux for the past few years, and I’ve been involved with the Peer Community In (PCI) initiative since its launch in 2017.

Joël, in addition to being an editor for the journal, is a very active member of the social insects community. He studies earwigs and argues for their importance in the study of social complexity in insects.

IS: In simple terms, what is the PCI (Peer Community In) initiative and how does it work, from uploading a preprint to receiving a recommendation?

PCI is a free, scientist-run initiative that offers open and transparent peer review for preprints: basically, research papers shared publicly before formal journal publication. It was created to tackle some big issues in academic publishing: skyrocketing publication fees, the declining value of peer review for authors, and the overemphasis on journal prestige rather than the science itself. The idea is simple: to offer high-quality, community-driven peer review at no cost, across fields such as zoology, ecology, evolutionary biology, paleontology, and many others.

How does it work? It’s pretty straightforward and fully detailed on the PCI website (https://peercommunityin.org/submit-a-preprint-to-pci/), but in brief:

  1. You upload your manuscript to a preprint server (like bioRxiv) and your data to a public repository.
  2. You submit the link to the relevant PCI community (e.g., PCI Zoology).
  3. The PCI team checks your submission for FAIR data compliance, then sends it to “recommenders” (who act like editors). They organize peer review, and if your manuscript meets PCI’s standards (usually after revisions) the recommender writes a short summary explaining why it’s worth recommending.
  4. Your preprint, along with all reviews and responses, gets an official DOI and stays openly accessible. You can then submit your recommended preprint to journals, including those like Insectes Sociaux that recognize PCI’s process.

In short, PCI helps researchers get constructive feedback and recognition for their work, all while keeping science open and accessible.

IS: How does PCI differ from the traditional peer-review process? What are its main strengths?

PCI follows a fairly traditional peer-review process: each manuscript is reviewed by at least two reviewers, and several rounds of revision may be needed before a recommendation is granted.

That said, there are some important differences.

First, PCI delivers a recommendation, not a publication. In other words, your manuscript receives a kind of quality stamp (complete with a DOI) but it is not tied to a specific journal. After that, you can either submit the improved manuscript (together with the previous reviews) to a PCI-friendly journal, which can take those reviews into account to avoid unnecessarily additional rounds of reviews, or submit it to the PC Journal.

Second, recommenders must write a short text explaining why the manuscript is being recommended. This encourages real engagement: It’s not just clicking “accept.” It also means that potential recommenders can decline early on if they feel they won’t be able to fully commit to the process. In that sense, it adds responsibility and transparency.

Finally (and this is my personal experience) the reviews are often of very high quality. Because the manuscript is not competing for space in a specific journal, reviewers focus on the science itself rather than on whether it feels “flashy” enough. The feedback tends to be constructive, detailed, and genuinely helpful.

IS: Does the “PCI-friendly” status mean that authors must now deposit a preprint and go through PCI in order to submit to Insectes Sociaux?

No, absolutely not. Authors are still welcome to submit directly to Insectes Sociaux through the regular process. Being PCI-friendly simply means that authors have the option of going through PCI first, and that doing so will not delay publication if they later submit to the journal. It’s an opportunity — not an obligation — to support open science at no extra cost (in terms of fees, time, or energy) and potentially improve the manuscript and the reproducibility of its results along the way.

IS: What specific documents should an author provide when submitting via PCI (recommendation, review reports, author responses), and how does that make submission to the journal easier?

Once your manuscript has been recommended by PCI, you simply follow the usual submission procedure for Insectes Sociaux. In your cover letter, you mention that the manuscript has been recommended by PCI and include the DOI of the PCI recommendation. That’s it. Everything is already accessible through the DOI, which makes the process straightforward and transparent.

IS: What concrete benefits does PCI offer authors (visibility, speed, recognition for reviewers) and the Insectes Sociaux community?

For authors, the benefits are multiple. First, they receive a transparent, high-quality peer-review process that helps improve the manuscript — which they can still submit to the journal of their choice. In some cases, the reviewers’ enthusiasm may even encourage authors to aim for a broader audience than they initially considered. Second, a PCI recommendation gives early and broad visibility to the work, even before journal publication. Finally, it places the community working on social insects at the forefront of open science — and that’s something we can be proud of.

IS: What concrete impact do you expect for the journal’s readers and authors (e.g. decision times, quality of submissions)?

I expect a very positive impact overall. First, manuscripts that come through PCI will often have already gone through a thorough and constructive review process, which should translate into stronger, clearer, and more robust papers. That ultimately benefits everyone: readers get higher-quality science, and authors submit work that has already been improved through detailed feedback. Importantly, this shouldn’t lead to longer decision times. On the contrary, because the reviews are already available and transparent, the evaluation process at the journal can be more efficient. And all of this comes without additional publication costs for authors. In that sense, it’s really a win-win situation: better papers, no extra fees, and no unnecessary delays.

IS: To conclude: what practical advice would you give a young researcher who is unsure whether to post a preprint + use PCI or to submit directly to Insectes Sociaux?

Academic publishing is clearly evolving, and open science is playing an increasingly important role in our careers. For a young researcher who is hesitating, my advice would be simple: give it a try. Posting a preprint and going through PCI can be a very positive experience. You receive constructive feedback in a transparent setting, your work becomes visible earlier, and you engage directly with the scientific community. It’s not a risky move; it’s an opportunity to strengthen your manuscript and to take part in a more open and collaborative way of doing science. At the end of the day, it’s about finding the process that suits you best, but PCI is definitely worth experiencing at least once.

IS: Thank you Joël! Oh and… to all our readers, please have a look to the Joël research here!

©Joël Meunier

Hovering battles at the ant nest: the remarkable behavior of a rare ant parasitoid wasp

/ Damien Gergonne / Leave a comment

By Satsuki Kajiwara

Satsuki is a PhD student in the Entomology Laboratory at Kyushu University, Japan, where she studies ant-associated parasitoid wasps. In this blog post, she shares her discovery of aerial fights between female Ogkosoma cremieri competing for access to ant larvae. Her lastest research in Insectes Sociaux can be read here.

Ant colonies, with their abundant resources and secure environments, are frequently exploited by various organisms that have evolved strategies to infiltrate and persist within them. These organisms, known as myrmecophiles, depend on ants for at least part of their life cycle.

The subfamily Hybrizontinae, which I am currently studying, represents a highly specialized group of parasitoid wasps that attack only ant larvae (Lachaud and Pérez- Lachaud 2012). Their known host ants belong to the genera Lasius (including the subgenera Lasius and Dendrolasius) and Myrmica. Notably, two species in the subgenus Dendrolasius exhibit unusual behavior: they transport their larvae between tree trunks and underground nests depending on the season (Kajiwara and Yamauchi 2023). Because Hybrizontinae wasps parasitize larvae during these transport events, the timing of larval movement is critical for their reproductive success (Komatsu and Konishi 2010).

Females of this subfamily oviposit by inserting their ovipositor into larvae being carried by worker ants—an opportunity that occurs only during the brief moments when larvae are exposed outside the nest.

Two basic host-searching strategies are known: (1) hovering near ant nest entrance and (2) ambushing along ant trails by clinging to vegetation.

Two host-searching strategies observed in the subfamily Hybrizontinae.

While surveying ant parasitoid wasps on my university campus in Japan, I was fortunate to discover a hovering female of Ogkosoma cremieri (Romand) near a nest of Lasius capitatus (Kuznetsov-Ugamsky). This unexpected encounter became the starting point for a more detailed behavioral study.

An adult female of Ogkosoma cremieri hovering in front of the nest of Lasius capitatus

Although earlier researchers reported hovering behavior in this species, they did not identify the specific time of day when it occurs. My observations revealed that females hover between 06:30 and 17:00, indicating sustained activity throughout the daytime.

One day I witnessed something remarkable. A female O. cremieri hovered at the nest entrance and approached larvae being carried by workers. When several females were present, they sometimes engaged in aerial jostling: the wasp positioned in front of the nest (red arrow in the image below) drove off an approaching female (yellow arrow) by pushing her while hovering. The displaced wasp was then attacked by ants and dragged into the nest, showing how dangerous it can be for wasps to approach ant brood. Aggressive competition between parasitoid females has been observed before in other ichneumonids, but usually on the ground or on plants — witnessing physical pushing while hovering appears to be a novel behaviour.

Aerial struggle between two female O. cremieri hovering at a Lasius capitatus nest entrance, where competition for host larvae can escalate into ant attacks. A, two females(yellow and red arrows) hovering in front of a Lasius capitatus nest; B, the female positioned in front of the nest (red arrow) attacked the approaching female (yellow arrow); C, the approaching female (yellow arrow) was pushed away by the female in front of the nest (red arrow), and the pushed-aside female (yellow arrow) was attacked by ants.

Interestingly, L. capitatus workers transport large numbers of larvae from tree trunks into underground nests at night. However, no oviposition behavior by O. cremieri toward these larvae was observed. This pattern suggests that nocturnal larval transport may serve as an adaptive strategy by ants to avoid parasitoid attacks. Consistent with this interpretation, my observations also suggest that O. cremieri is not a nocturnal species. Females became active at night only when the area was illuminated with a flashlight or headlamp—likely a response to artificial light rather than natural nocturnal activity.

Future comparative studies across genera may reveal how morphological traits and behavioral strategies have diversified within this intriguing group of parasitoids.


References:

Kajiwara S, Yamauchi T (2023) Larval transport by adults of Lasius morisitai (Hymenoptera: Formicidae): The season and the time of day. Nat Environ Sci Res 36:15–17 [in Japanese]. https://doi.org/10.32280/nesr.36.0_15

Kajiwara, S., Yamauchi, T. Parasitoidic strategy of Ogkosoma cremieri (Hymenoptera: Ichneumonidae: Hybrizontinae) against Lasius capitatus (Hymenoptera: Formicidae). Insectes Sociaux (2025). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00040-025-01072-8

Komatsu T, Konishi K (2010) Parasitic behaviors of two ant parasitoid wasps (Ichneumonidae: Hybrizontinae). Sociobiology 56(3):575–584

Lachaud J-P, Pérez-Lachaud G (2012) Diversity of species and behavior of hymenopteran parasitoids of ants: A review. Psyche2012:134746. https://doi.org/10.1155/2012/134746

Interview with a social insect scientist: Tom Ratz

/ Damien Gergonne / Leave a comment

Tom Ratz is a researcher at the University of Zurich, studying social interactions in arthropods like Drosophila and beetles. One of his most surprising discoveries came during his PhD while observing burying beetle mothers. Check out his latest work in Insectes Sociaux here!

IS: Who are you, and what do you do?

I am an SNSF Ambizione Fellow based at the Department of Evolutionary biology and Environmental Studies, University of Zurich, Switzerland. My research broadly explores social interactions in arthropods and their role in evolution. My current focus is on agonistic interactions in the highly aggressive species of fruit fly Drosophila prolongata. My group uses a combination of behavioural experiments, quantitative genetic tools, and experimental evolution to test how the competitive environment shapes the evolution of social and non-social traits. 

IS: How did you develop an interest in your research?

My fascination with the insect world began early, around the age of eight, when I started collecting beetles in the backyard of my house. I was captivated by the hidden, bustling world of insects happening all around us, often unnoticed. I wanted to pursue a career in entomology and enrolled in a biology degree. During my studies, I found myself particularly drawn to ethology and behavioural ecology. Applying these fields to insects felt like an exciting way to maintain a connection to entomology while exploring broader scientific questions about behaviour and ecology.

Aggressive encounter between two male Drosophila prolongata. In the first image (left), one male chases the other, leading to an escalation into a fight involving leg fencing (right).

IS: What is your favorite social insect, and why?

Burying beetles are my favourite social insects. I studied them during my PhD and still find their social behaviour incredibly enigmatic–most of which takes place on or inside the decaying carcass of a vertebrate! In a sense, what is a crypt to some is a cradle for burying beetles. Aside from their important ecological role as efficient buriers of small rodent and bird corpses, the complexity of their social interactions within family is, to me, unparalleled in the arthropod world. These behaviours include larvae begging for food and parents regurgitating a “soup” of pre-digested carcass flesh to feed them. Conveniently, burying beetles are mostly undisturbed by experimental conditions, making their behaviour relatively easy to observe and study in the lab.

IS: What is the best moment/discovery in your research so far? What made it so memorable?

A memorable discovery was analysing the data of my first PhD experiment and finding that they absolutely defied our initial predictions. Contrary to expectations, burying beetle mothers didn’t reduce care when experimentally handicapped by a led weight attached to them –instead, they provided more care. At first, this result was puzzling to me, but it became a revelation about the importance of understanding a species’ natural history. It makes sense for a parent to increase investment towards the current brood when prospects for future reproduction are low, which is the case with handicapping, even if the cost of care is higher. This insight highlighted a crucial lesson: while theoretical predictions are valuable, they must be contextualised within the specific biology of the study system.

IS: Do you teach or do outreach/science communication? How do you incorporate your research into these areas?

In both teaching and science communication I try to incorporate my own research as case studies to illustrate key concepts and bring scientific research to life. I find that people are more engaged when they can interact directly with the researchers behind the studies.

Lab stock and experimental populations of the fruit fly Drosophila prolongata

IS: What do you think are some of the important current questions in social insect research, and what is essential for future research?

In my opinion, some critical questions in the field include clarifying the role of social behaviour in shaping population dynamics and evolutionary responses. It is increasingly clear that social interactions within a group can drastically influence the population growth, survival, and how animals respond and adapt to environmental changes. However, what remains less understood is when and to what extend behavioural dynamics taking place among interacting individuals can impact group fitness and drive long-term phenotypic evolution.

IS: Outside of science, what are your favorite activities, hobbies, or sports?

One of my top hobbies is spending time outdoors. I’ve been fortunate to live near beautiful natural landscapes and mountains, which has allowed me to enjoy hiking throughout the year. It’s a great way to clear the mind and recharge. I’m also a regular at the bouldering gym. And of course, entomology remains an important hobby of mine.

IS: What is the last book you read? Would you recommend it? Why or why not?

The book “In search of us: adventures in anthropology” by Lucy Moore, and I highly recommend it. It’s a fascinating account of the origins of anthropology, told through the stories of people who helped found the discipline. It’s rich in field work and historical anecdotes. The author does a nice job of highlighting the complexities of the influential figures in the field–acknowledging both their biases as Westerners and their progressive ideas ahead of their time.

Burying beetles parents feeding their larvae.

IS: How do you keep going when things get tough?

Talking things through with colleagues, friend, or family often helps. While it may not directly solve the problem, verbalising it can normalise the issue and make it feel less dramatic (which it often is). Sometimes, simply going for a walk works wonders–a change of scenery can help put things into perspective.

IS: If you were to go live on an uninhabited island and could only bring three things, what would you bring? Why?

If it can count as one item, I’d bring my partner with me. She’s incredibly resourceful and crafty, and would surely be a great survival companion (as she is in life!). I’d make sure she brings her Swiss army knife, so that’s item number two covered. And obviously a tube to collect beetles as my third item.

Tom, collecting beetles in Greece

IS: Who do you think has had the most considerable influence on your science career?

My PhD supervisor, Per Smiseth, has been a major influence on my scientific career. He’s a mentor with exceptional work ethics. Another key figure was Sylvain Pincebourde, who took me as an intern in his lab when I just a first-year undergraduate. That was my very first  real research experience, and was incredibly formative. I also owe a great deal to many other mentors and colleagues who have had an important role in shaping my interest and career in Science, including Joël Meunier, Pierre-Olivier Montiglio, Niels Dingemanse, Cristina Tuni, Stefan Lüpold, and Wolf Blanckenhorn.

IS: What advice would you give to someone hoping to be a social insect researcher in the future?

A general piece of advice, not just for someone interested in social insects, is to focus on work you’re passionate about and truly enjoy. With genuine interest and motivation, nearly everything seems to become achievable.

IS: Has learning from a mistake ever led you to success?

Yes! And, sadly, the most painful mistakes are often the ones that teach us the most.

IS: What is your favorite place science has taken you?

The tropical forests of Panama are a favourite of mine. I also have a soft spot for Mediterranean ecosystems. Despite their dryness, I’m always surprised by their abundance and diversity of plants and animals.