There are thousands of species with colonies of different size, kinship structure and nesting environment, that have each evolved evolutionary stable strategies to cope with challenges of social conflict, disease pressure and demands for efficient communication.

Social insect communication is mostly chemical and is preferentially directed towards kin and nestmates. Efficient communication is critically important to protect colonies from robbing and parasitism and for the regulation of potential reproductive conflicts between members of the same colony.

The project CODICES aims to achieve an interdisciplinary understanding of the chemical, neurophysiological and evolutionary principals that have shaped chemical communication across insect societies of different sizes, kin structures and disease pressures.Social hymenoptera (ants, bees, wasps) are used as model systems to addresses generally important questions about the honesty and reliability of communication signals as a function of cost efficiency and risk of abuse by non-cooperative individuals.

The methodology is a combination of behavioural experiments, genetic, chemical and neurophysiological studies.The work is inspired by general principles of kin-selection and economic optimality, allowing predictions both on proximate and ultimate aspects of communication systems.