Today we celebrate the International Day for Biological Diversity, to recognise the pivotal
role of biodiversity to life on earth and human well-being. On this day in 1992, the text of the
Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) was adopted. To mark this, 22nd May has been
proclaimed by the United Nations as the International Day for Biological Diversity, to increase
awareness about the importance of and threats to biodiversity.

Plant Volatiles: Chemistry, Ecology and Evolution
edited by Renee M. Borges

Its raining bush frogs in the Western Ghats
Kartik Shanker and SP Vijayakumar

Should you find yourself wandering in the cloud-drenched mountains of the Western Ghats, you would be engulfed by a cacophony of frog calls. Many of these will be bush frogs, a group of miniature frogs distributed throughout south and southeast Asia. Some are so small that they can be accommodated on your thumbnail!

Hanuman langurs are a species complex

Congratulations to Rittik Deb, a PhD student at Prof.Rohini Balakrishnan's Lab for winning the Commended Poster Award of Commonwealth Science Conference 2014

The adaptable garden plant Lantana camara has been spreading across India and edging out native species for two hundred years now, despite all efforts to control its growth. Scientists suggest that we could more effectively manage the plant by focusing our attention on riverside habitats.

Dear Prospective Student,

From 2014 onwards, IISc has discontinued all of its PhD entrance exams including the Ecology (ES) exam that was one of the qualifying exams to appear for an interview at CES for our PhD program.

A recently published research work of Manjari Jain, a former PhD student of Prof. Rohini Balakrishnan and now a faculty at IISER Mohali, has been covered in Indiabioscience. A quote from the article:

Male crickets court their females through song. But in the wild, several species of crickets call together in a cacophonic chorus. Researchers from the Indian Institute of Science used a series of experiments that combined rigorous fieldwork and elaborate modeling to find out how the male’s song reaches its mate through the apparent din.

The research work of Joyshree Chanam, a PhD student working with Prof. Renee M Borges, on ant-plant interactions has been covered by the New Scientist magazine.