This workshop would aim to clarify the importance of using an easily readable and a graceful prose in journal papers, since the quality of the language used by many non-native speakers of English is depressing. Given that English today has emerged as a world language for science communication, we cannot take things lightly and thus lose the opportunity of making a mark in the world of science. I emphasize this because writing an intelligible and a graceful prose is as important as reporting new findings. We need to recognize that papers get rejected not because of the quality of science reported, but because of the poor language used in papers. The question we need to remember here is, ‘If the text is not clear to the reader, then what purpose does reporting new results serve?’

Insect-induced plant galls were known to humans for long, mostly for use as drugs and for extracting ink-like material used in writing and painting. In the last few decades, we have brought to light scores of unknown gall systems and their inducing agents. Irrespective of the tremendous advances we have made in the demographic ecology of gall-inducing arthropods and the galls of inimitable morphologies, our efforts to characterize the mechanism of gall development has been tardy. Currently we have been reasonably successful in clarifying the steps in the physiology of gall growth and differentiation with the characterization of auxin and cytokinin precursors in the involved arthropod’s saliva. However, we have not been able to precisely clarify the earliest step involved — the triggering factor — which usually occurs within the first 24 h of attack of plant tissue by the inducing arthropod. While acknowledging the available explanations, this talk would summarize the existing knowledge and highlight the gaps that in the science of Cecidology. I propose to explore the world of arthropod-induced galls — unique and highly symmetrical natural sculptures — using examples from the Indian subcontinent. We need to recognize many questions remain to be answered.

Why is it that some species are found in some areas but not others? Answering this question is the task of biogeography and the answers fall into two main categories: that species dispersed to that area from elsewhere at some point in the past, or it has been there since it originated.
With the integration of data from fossils, phylogenies based upon both morphological and molecular data and palaeoenvironmental information, it is possible to offer explanations of why some species are found in particular areas and how they got there. The fossils permit the phylogenies to be time-calibrated and dated evolutionary events can be assessed in light of simultaneous environmental change.
I will illustrate these basic principles of biogeography initially with an example of long distance geodispersal: an obscure and rare group of bees found primarily in the Mediterranean region have all of their close relatives in the New World. I will suggest how they got to their currently occupied range.
Bees are more diverse in arid and semi-arid regions of the world and also more diverse in the southern hemisphere. I will explore the radiation of bees in the world’s driest desert – the Atacama Desert of Chile. Here, some bees must remain in diapause for many years before conditions are suitable for production of the next generation. I will give examples of unusual habitats that provide resources for bees in this otherwise inhospitable environment.
In most of the Atacama Desert the limited rainfall occurs in winter, but in the extreme northeast of the country, most rain falls in summer. I will investigate the potential influence of this disjunction on bee evolution.
Lastly, I will discuss the often remarkable adaptations bees have for foraging on desert plants and use dated phylogenies to investigate bee transition to the most speciose genus of flowering plants in the Atacama.

Animals communicating in the context of mate searching benefit by obtaining mates, but also experience costs. Studies on the effect of predation on such communication has largely been addressed in an evolutionary context. How individuals trade-off risks and benefits of communication in an ecological context has, however, received much less attention. In this context, my thesis aims at understanding the ecology of predator-prey interactions in the context of communication, using the tree cricket Oecanthus henryi as a model system. I first estimated the relative predation risk experienced by communicating and non-communicating, male and female crickets from their primary predators, green lynx spiders, at multiple spatial scales within a night. I then went on to manipulate predation risk in enclosure experiments and observed how it affects communication and survival, to compare their relative fitness consequences. Finally, I examined how crickets and spiders use space at two different spatial scales, in order to explore whether crickets behaviourally manage the risk they experience while searching for mates.

Conservation of native wildlife species remains a challenge in the face of continuing changes in climate and available habitats. Reptiles are likely to be particularly susceptible to environmental change due to their reliance on their environment to maintain body temperature and their limited ability to disperse relative to larger vertebrates. In addition, we know relatively little about the environmental requirements of many reptile species, which makes conservation planning difficult. Here, I use historical occurrence records to model species' historical (1900-1977) and contemporary (1986-2012) distributions using four Species Distribution Model approaches. Because these historical records are known to be biased, I then used a probability-based sampling design and five visual encounter survey methods to estimate occupancy while accounting for imperfect detection. I briefly discuss the benefits of this approach to future monitoring of reptile populations.

TBA

Even in the presence of ample oxygen, many organisms simultaneously utilize both the efficient aerobic pathway and the inefficient fermentation pathway for respiration. This behavior is called the Warburg effect (also termed overflow metabolism in bacteria) and has remained an enigmatic and poorly understood phenomenon despite years of experimental work. Here, we focus on bacterial cells and build a model of three trade offs involved in utilization of aerobic and anaerobic respiration pathways (rate versus yield, surface area versus volume, and fast versus slow biomass production) to explain the observed behavior in cellular systems. The constructed model also predicts changes in the relative usage of both pathways in terms of size and shape constraints of the bacterial cell, and identifies how substrate availability and environment influences growth rate. Furthermore, we use the model to explain certain complex phenomena in modern- and paleo-ecosystems like methane and carbon dioxide emissions in the wetland ecosystem and in the end-Permian extinction event, via the concept of overflow metabolism. These predictions from the model are not only testable in lab/field but also hold important implications for understanding such behaviors in ecological systems as well as for making relevant policies in conservation and climate change.

In group-living animals, competitive and cooperative social interactions among individuals give rise to social structure. Understanding variation in social structure is fundamentally important since it captures the strategies adopted by individuals to maximize the benefits of group-living (e.g. cooperative predator defense, offspring care) while minimizing its costs (e.g. disease risk, resource competition). During the last
decade, social network analysis has revolutionized the way we understand social structure. Specifically, network approaches have improved on traditional methods by quantitatively describing higher-order aspects of social life from both direct interactions and secondary pathways that connect group members. Here I illustrate three major avenues in which social networks have been instrumental in animal behavioral and
socioecological research. First, I describe how studies of nonhuman primate social networks have added a fresh perspective to our current understanding of the evolutionary origins of their social styles. Specifically, comparative studies of macaque (Macaca sp.) dominance hierarchies and affiliative grooming social networks have shown that aspects of social style that were thought to be structurally linked in fact constitute a mosaic of unlinked, independently evolving traits. Second, I review how networks can be used to understand links between social life and health outcomes, specifically in epidemiological models that link heterogeneity in social contact patterns with disease risk. The majority of these studies have revealed that central or well-connected individuals maybe potential “superspreaders” of infectious agents, because they show higher parasite prevalence or diversity. Further, comparisons of social networks with microbial phylogenies and transmission networks maybe key in modeling potential transmission pathways of epidemics through animal populations. Third, I review a recent line of research that recognizes the utility of social network analysis in wildlife conservation and population management. Specifically, temporal changes in the structure or fragmentation of social networks of wild animal populations may indicate the impact of human perturbation of the natural environment on the destabilization (or resilience) of wildlife populations. Such structural changes to social networks may in turn impact animal health, reproductive success, and survival. I end by briefly elaborating on how bipartite and multimodal networks constitute a key future direction in our assessments of animal socioecological and human-wildlife systems. They add a level of complexity to social networks and by distinguishing two or more components within a system. I also highlight some caveats and potential pitfalls of network approaches that ought to be considered before their implementation in behavioral and ecological research.

Understanding the origins of animal social life and its impact on health outcomes presents a major challenge for researchers. This is because social diversity is influenced by multiple evolutionary and ecological factors and has complex impacts on health. My research addresses this challenge by examining the influence of both intrinsic characteristics (e.g. phylogenetic history) and extrinsic socioecological factors (e.g. resource competition, human impact) on animal social life and health. Its broader impact lies in the conservation and management of both problematic and endangered wildlife populations. To-date, my work has focused on captive and free-living groups of nonhuman primates, particularly macaques (Macaca sp.). In addition to displaying diverse social structures, macaques also share close physiology, evolutionary histories, and ecological space with humans, making them an ideal model genus. First I present aspects of my past research, which focused on understanding the evolutionary origins of macaque social structure. Specifically, I found that some aspects of macaque social structure related to their dominance hierarchies show strong phylogenetic signals, while others related to the structure of affiliative grooming social networks, show only
moderate-to-weak signals. Further, my findings on free-ranging rhesus macaques (M. mulatta) and wild Tibetan macaques (M. thibetana) found that socioecological factors may influence variation in grooming exchange behaviors. My current research deals with how macaque social structure influences health outcomes, specifically infectious disease risk. I examine how broader social contexts and/or microbe-specific characteristics may determine whether/when macaques’ social networks may socially buffer animals against pathogenic infection, facilitate contact-mediated pathogen transmission, or present ‘social-bottlenecks’ that prevent the group-wide spread of infectious agents. I’m also currently conducting long-term assessments of human-macaque interfaces as dynamic, Coupled-Systems. This work is examining how anthropogenic factors may influence the social structure of free-living macaque populations in Asia by inducing environmental stressors or by constraining the time available for animals to engage in social interactions.
As part of my three-track future research plan, I will first build on my research on captive macaques to unravel the co-evolutionary, paradoxical links between primate socioecology and disease risk. I also aim to capitalize on the on-going coupled systems research to test conflicting hypotheses (evolutionary versus acquired) related to the sharing of gut microbiota at human-macaque interfaces. Finally, I look forward to establishing the Coupled-Systems approach as a unifying framework to assess the drivers and feedback effects of interactions and conflict between humans and other wildlife groups and populations. I end by encouraging the conceptualization of social structure as a set of social reaction-norms, i.e. where groups/species may respond similarly to variation in ecological factors, but have inherently different ranges of responses to the same conditions.

One of the fundamental questions in biogeography is how paleoclimate and paleogeology shape biotic distribution. However, to understand these processes at different time frames, one needs to look at patterns at both intra and inter-species and levels. Freshwater gastropods owing to their ecology are particularly susceptible to environmental fluctuations and therefore are an ideal model system to study these processes. In my first two chapters, I have investigated the origin and evolution of two snail families, Ampullaridae and Viviparidae. Here, I explored the role of tectonic history of India and several paleoclimatic and paleogeological events in shaping their distribution in the Indian subcontinent in a phylogenetic framework. In the third chapter, I have addressed how late Quaternary climatic fluctuations have affected the distribution and demography of two species of Viviparidae snails: Bellamya bengalensis and B. cf. dissimilis, in the subcontinent using phylogenetic and population genetic tools as well as statistical phylogeographic inference. I discuss how these various abiotic factors have affected the distribution of these snail species at different geological time frames and levels of biological organization.