As in 2009 the annual meeting of the Northwest-European Section of the International Union for the Study of Social Insects (IUSSI) was organised by members of the University of Sussex including members of the Laboratory of Apiculture and Social Insects (LASI). During two days in December 2011, talks and posters on a wide range of topics including colony organisation, natural history, social evolution and diseases highlighted recent advances made in social insect research.

Our plenary speaker Dr. Audrey Dussutour, from the Paul Sabatier University, Toulouse, France

The organising committee was particularly pleased with the diversity of topics, the high quality of student talks and the presentations of the two plenary speakers, Dr. Audrey Dussutour from the Université Paul Sabatier in France (Title of the talk: Communal nutrition in ants: the collective mouth and gut, Photo) and Prof. Tristam Wyatt from the University of Oxford (Title of the talk: Chemical communication in social insects: pheromones (fixed, species-wide signals) vs. signature mixtures (variable, for identity including colony odour)).

The meeting was particularly popular among students this year thanks to the generous financial support provided by the IUSSI NWE section.