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Intrasexual competition is ubiquitous in nature. In males, such competition for mates can lead to the evolution of conspicuous and costly morphological traits. However, competition through social interactions can
also occur for resources other than mates (such as food) and has been termed as social selection or social competition. Social competition in females, though not as conspicuous as that in males, may be widespread and is understudied. It can have important evolutionary consequences for individual phenotype and on the genetic and social structure of a population. Most of our understanding of traits involved in intrasexual competition comes from studies of males and less is known about social competition in females. Individuals can compete using physical fights. They are extremely costly and less common in females than in males, because of the inherent differences life histories of the two sexes. However, there are various alternatives to physical fights, an important one being
signalling and displays.
I propose to study intrasexual competition in females in a wild population of the Peninsular rock lizard* (Psammophilus dorsalis),* using a combination of observational and experimental approaches. These lizards can be easily be marked and followed over their lifetime. Preliminary work shows that females display towards other females and they vary in their display rates, using which they appear to compete among themselves for establishing and maintaining territories. Females also vary in their responses to a simulated intrusion. Thus, this study system is ideal for examining social competition in females.
This study will focus on the adaptiveness of signalling and aggression in females and examine differences between the sexes in these behavioural traits. I first plan to study territoriality (an outcome of competition) in females and compare patterns with those of males. I will also characterise physical features of territories to quantify the resources that might be under competition. I then propose to examine signalling and aggression over female lifetimes and study the factors influencing variation in these traits. I also plan to study the relationship between signalling and reproductive success in females. Finally, I propose to compare social signalling in intrasexual competition between males and females of *P. dorsalis*.
The evolution of elaborate phenotypic traits, which are widespread in the animal kingdom, is usually attributed to sexual selection. However, natural selection can impose constraints on the degree of elaboration of such traits. Therefore, animal signals reflect a balance between the two forces of natural and sexual selection. I am interested in understanding the relative strength of these forces in maintenance of a complex signal type: dynamic colour change. Males of the peninsular rock agama (*Psammophilus dorsalis*) exhibit rapid dynamic colour changes on their lateral and dorsal body regions during social interactions. The costs, benefits, and adaptive significance of this dynamic colour change is yet unknown.
The main objectives of my study are to: (1) examine the relative importance of different components of the dynamic colour signal by assessing behavioural responses of males and females to each signal component independently and together; (2) determine the information content of the multicomponent colour signal by examining whether the magnitude of colour change is associated with key measures of health and immunity, and (3) quantify the effect of ecological variables such as microhabitat, social intensity, and predation intensity on visual signalling.
An acoustic communication system consists of a sender, a receiver and a signal. In my thesis I have focused on the receiver. The model system I chose was the tree cricket species, Oecanthus henryi. In a cricket mating system, usually the male calls and the female recognizes and responds to the call. A female in a cricket mating system is thus faced with three kinds of issues: recognizing the conspecific call, localizing the call and discriminating among conspecific males based on individual differences in the calls. My thesis objectives are focused upon these three broad themes. I have examined the role of call carrier frequency in maintaining sender-receiver match thus aiding conspecific recognition. I have also explored the role of carrier frequency in discrimination among conspecific males. O. henryi is found in sympatry with a congeneric calling tree cricket species, O. indicus. I studied reproductive isolation between the two based on calls. Finally since O. henryi is found on bushes, the males and females are separated in azimuth as well as in elevation; hence I studied the mechanism of 3D sound localization in these insects.
Many terrestrial ectotherms are capable of rapid colour change, yet it is unclear how these animals accommodate the multiple functions of colour, particularly camouflage, communication and thermoregulation. I will discuss visible and near-infrared (NIR) colour change, the mechanisms that generate it, how it is used for communication, camouflage and thermoregulation, trade-offs between these functions and their evolutionary consequences.
New methods of genomic analysis are greatly improving our ability to learn about animals and to mitigate threats against them. I provide examples from my research program illustrating the use of genome analysis, DNA capture, metabarcoding, and transcriptomics in a range of studies dealing with endangered animal species. These include, among others, studies of amphibians threatened with invasive chytrid fungus, native Hawaiian birds surviving introduced avian malaria, the role of ship ballast water in spreading invasive pathogens around the world, and the use of next generation sequencing methods to assess genetic structure in salamanders, Hawaiian birds, and island foxes.
Most animals face the challenge of finding a place where they intend to go, technically called homing. Different animal species have evolved diverse physiological, neurological, anatomical and behavioural mechanisms to deal with this challenge. It is therefore of interest to understand the general as well as species-specific mechanisms of such a wide-spread behaviour by which animals, including humans, execute this universal task of homing.
Social insects, which include honey bees, wasps and ants, are an excellent choice for the study of homing behaviour because of their habit of central place foraging. They are also especially fascinating because they execute this complex task in spite of a rather simple nervous system. For my thesis, I have explored the homing abilities and mechanisms of Ropalidia marginata, a eusocial wasp (commonly known as paper wasp) found throughout the peninsular India.
I started my work by documenting their homing abilities by displacing them in increasing distances from their nests in four cardinal directions. I found that when released within about 500 metres, all the released wasps returned to their nest on the day of release. This might be because of their familiarity with the releasing areas, which they might have acquired by foraging there regularly. I also found that some of them returned to their nest even from about 1.5 kilometres. To find out what makes some of the wasps successful from such far distances, and what factors determine their overall homing performance, I next conducted three experiments from which I found that the age and familiarity with the surrounding play a significant role on their homing performance. I then investigated the mechanisms by which foragers acquire familiarity with their foraging grounds. I found that they initially increase the time they spend on foraging per day. But after about 2-3 weeks of foraging, their foraging duration starts decreasing although their foraging success keeps increasing. Besides, they also develop directional fidelity in their foraging paths. These results indicate that the wasps are capable of learning and memorising the features of the landscape and use them for foraging. I suggest that the foraging abilities and mechanisms of R. marginata are a reflection of their evolution in feature-rich tropical habitat.
Video abstract: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yvrv7tAveLE
Join award-winning journalist and Fulbright-Nehru fellow (2013-14) Meera Subramanian for a multimedia presentation exploring the human and global health implications of India’s ravaged environmental landscape. Her narrative nonfiction book, Elemental India: The Natural World at a Time of Crisis and Opportunity, is based on travel across the country, learning about the ordinary people and micro-enterprises determined to guide India into a sustainable future. Publishers’ Weekly gave it a starred review and Kirkus Reviews called it “right thinking and accusatory in all the right places.” Meet an organic farmer who is reviving his land after the onslaught of the Green Revolution; villagers in Rajasthan who are resuscitating a river run dry; cook stove designers questing after a smokeless fire; and biologists bringing vultures back from the brink of extinction. And in Bihar, one of India’s most impoverished states, meet a bold young woman teaching young adolescents the fundamentals of sexual health. By investigating these five environmental crises, framed around the five elements, Subramanian discovers individual stories that renew hope for a nation that has the potential to create a sustainable and prosperous future, for India, the earth, and all her inhabitants.
The focus of this talk will be on the international development of voluntary biodiversity offsets, a conservation instrument that permits developers to pursue their activities if conservation actions are undertaken elsewhere to compensate for the environmental impacts of their projects. Largely undertaken by extractive industries that operate in the global South where no offsetting regulations exist, this tool is currently attracting growing interest from policy makers, private companies, financial institutions and conservation experts. I will explore in what contexts and through what processes this idea has gathered momentum, as well as the disturbing gap between the way it has been framed and its practical implementation. I will conclude with some preliminary comments on the (very early stage of the) development of biodiversity offsets in India, and how this topic could become a fruitful research project in the near future.
According to classical niche theory, species in natural communities coexist because every species is the best competitor in its own niche. Neutral theories of biodiversity, on the other hand, suggest that natural communities are largely open, non-equilibrium assemblages of functionally equivalent species. Here I examine some aspects of the so-called neutral-niche debate, particularly in relation to the nature of stochasticity in neutral theory. The use of stochasticity in neutral theory also embodies a philosophically different approach to theory and > model development whose broader implications are tentatively discussed..