It is a pleasure to announce that the winner of Insectes Sociaux’s 2023 Best Paper Award is “Sociality reduces the probability of eradication success of arthropod pests”, by Matthew Howse and colleagues (Howse et al., 2023). Matthew’s paper was also the subject of an Editor’s Highlight article (Goodisman, 2023).

Matthew and colleagues tried to understand the factors that affect the success, or lack thereof, of eradicating invasive social insects. We may think that social insects are interesting and awesome, but unfortunately, many of them cause significant ecological damage when moved out of their native range. This paper is also a good example of making the best out of a bad situation, as Matthew started working on this project after a failed field season, as I let him explain in his own words.

"This study took place during the first year of my PhD looking at the feasibility of invasive social wasp eradication in New Zealand. I hope to complete my PhD in the middle of this year. I embarked on this project after a less than successful field season where severe weather had prevented me from accessing my field sites at key parts of my data collection. Once back in the office I had to change tack and so did a deep dive into the literature and online databases. I found a wealth of information from years of previous eradication attempts to analyse and learn from in the pursuit of identifying why some attempts succeed and others fail. I must acknowledge mountains of work done by people involved in those previous attempts and the foresight they had to record what they did and to those who curate the extensive databases that made this work possible. Next for me is to complete my PhD here at Victoria University of Wellington over the next few months before taking the leap into the unknown and starting my professional career."

We wish Matthew success with the completion of his PhD.

The Best Paper Award is selected annually by the editors and editorial board of Insectes Sociaux after extensive review and consultation. The board consists of prominent scientists studying arthropod social biology at leading universities from around the world. Insectes Sociaux publishes original scientific studies and review articles about social arthropods.