Mandyam Srinivasan and the honeybee odometer controversy: pleas for academic truth and academic decency

Research around the turn of the millennium showed that honeybees use the amount of optic flow during foraging flights to estimate the distance between a food source and the hive. Upon returning to the hive, they communicate this information to their nestmates by encoding distance into the duration of the waggle phase during the waggle dance. A celebrated figure in establishing the idea of an optic-flow-driven odometer is the Australian neuroethologist Mandyam Srinivasan. However, in 2024, news broke about alleged irregularities and scientific misconduct in ten of Srinivasan's articles, including a high-profile paper published in Science in 2000. To help readers navigate through the following five articles contributed by several key players in the honeybee odometer controversy, this editorial first provides some scientific background. It then outlines the major events that, beginning with the first allegations on PubPeer in 2020, culminated in 2024 with an escalation of accusations against Srinivasan in newspapers, magazines, and social media. Finally, the editorial summarizes Srinivasan's responses to these allegations and the corrective actions he has taken.