Many ecosystem services derived from soils depend on their capacity to store organic matter. The aim of this talk is to present results from recent studies concerning biological as well as physico-chemical mechanisms leading to C gain or loss from soils. The importance of stabilisation processes for elevated residence times of bulk soil organic matter (SOM) and specific molecular compounds in different parts of the soil profile will be highlighted. I will present recent advances and changing paradigms concerning the composition and origin of stabilised SOM. Moreover, I will discuss the influence of biological factors, such as microbial diversity and faunal activity on these processes.

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Can animals have history? After all, the sense of history is assumed to be a part of what makes us uniquely human. Yet, the story of the lions of Gir, now over 500 in number with a range four times what it was a decade ago, gives cause for a cautious rethink.

On the brink of extinction around 1900 in their last forest home in Asia, they recovered under selective protection by princes, the Empire and in independent India. Since hunting ended in the 1950s, there has been a major change in lion behaviour. Far more than in the past and possibly unlike any other big cat population in the wild they often allow humans to come very close on foot. There are conflicts and there have been two instances of "lion plague" but these need to be set against a wider canvas of a remarkable human-animal interaction.

The remaking of carnivore-human interactions has entailed adaptation and change on the part of both. How should these be viewed historically? Peter Boomgaard in writing of tigers in the Malay world (where they were mostly wiped out) spoke of the tigers as "political animals" whose behaviour and habits were deeply conditioned by specific histories they shared with humans. But do the Gir lions merge as actors or actants in a history? Are they products of the historical process or makers of it even if in a very specific sense?

These questions require reflection even if there is no easy answer. They also make us rethink not only what it means to be animal but also what constitutes the human in the world of today.

Survival and adaptation of plants in their habitats involve sophisticated ecological events. For example, when attached by herbivores, elicitation of defense responses involves perception, processing and integration of external information into cellular and physiological machinery, ultimately leading to a massive molecular reprogramming. Except for the involvement of some transcription factors (TFs), a few imbedded in MPAK pathway, how defense signaling is modulated remains poorly understood. Regulatory small RNAs (smRNAs) have appeared as master regulators in cellular processes both in prokaryotes and eukaryotes. Information on their involvement in regulating plant defenses during herbivore attack is still limited. In our studies we are attempting deconvolution and reconstruction of a smRNA pathway that functionally regulates induced plant defenses. The evolution of smRNA-pathway effectors, the AGOs, is a dynamic process that could generate signatures of diversification of function of smRNA pathways in plants. Understanding molecular evolution of these components of smRNA machinery is providing further insights into mechanistic details of recruitment of specialized smRNAs. We are further expanding our studies to determine how such processes have responded to evolutionary pressures of polyploidization and domestication that have shaped agriculture, and in turn modern civilization.

The present distribution and co-occurrence of trees in the Western Ghats is determined by environmental drivers and biotic interactions operating over a hierarchy of spatial and temporal scales, from local sets of individuals to the regional pool of extant taxa. The French Institute of Pondicherry has conducted extensive characterization and mapping of the diversity of forest types in the
Western Ghats, and also characterized and monitored the long-term dynamics of local communities. From this rich information, it is time for us to address the determinants of the diversity and predict the dynamics of these forests across spatial scales.
Our main objectives are therefore: (i) to address the drivers of taxonomic, functional and phylogenetic diversity of forests over a broad environmental gradient, using cutting-edge theories and methodologies, (ii) to understand the origins of the extant pool of taxa, and how endemics have evolved in diverse niches.
Bringing together complementary skills and mutual interests of research teams working on biodiversity in the Western Ghats is an exciting and promising perspective. It will allow tackling the great challenge of better understanding the past and present of our legacy, as well as to predict its future in the face of intensive global changes.

Biology concerns itself primarily with understanding the life-mechanisms, diversity, relatedness and adaptedness of life forms, and the processes shaping the spatial and temporal patterns we see in the living world. Evolution, broadly taken, explains the diversity, relatedness and adaptedness of life forms. In this talk, I will develop a view of biology that stresses the dynamics of how population compositions change over time, emphasizing the interplay of three major “phenomena” in biology: development, ecology and heredity. The picture emerging from this view of biology constitutes the framework within which much of the mathematical modeling in both ecology and evolutionary biology is carried out. I will discuss this framework in an attempt to clarify the relationships between the various approaches to modeling the evolutionary process that are taken in evolutionary ecology, population genetics and quantitative genetics.

Darwin included only one figure in the Origin of Species, which depicted an “evolutionary tree”. This metaphor of evolutionary change is now being challenged. Instead of a tree like structure, the so called “web of life” metaphor possessing strands interconnected by genetic exchange has been supported by a growing number of data sets. This talk will delve into the evidence supporting the new metaphor, with much of the discussion centering on our own species, and those species with which we daily interact.

Claude Alvares is a name that needs no introduction for people who are into conservation or the organic movement. For the rest, a notorious man who has stalled the mining giants from plundering the country's resources for the last 3 decades and successfully so. He has very strong views on our current education system some of which might be hard to digest. He claims to have worked on a meagre salary of Rs 10,000 for the last 3 decades and to make a living he runs Other India Press. He grows his own veggies and is a content man. His 3 kids are home schooled and he can talk at length on the merits of right education. He will be here to share his recent work on Organic Farming and also share the secrets of how to battle giants in order to conserve our forests and such. Depending on the interest of the audience he can sway in any direction so please feel free to ask the questions of your interest.

The ability to fly has enabled insects to evade predators, disperse, and
occupy diverse niches leading to their remarkable success. Most flying
insects have undergone miniaturization. Miniaturization or a reduction in
body size implies reduced wing span which results in reduced aerodynamic
forces. To overcome the reduced lift, flies (order Diptera) flap their
wings at very high frequencies, often exceeding 100Hz. These rapid wing
beats are powered by specialized myogenic muscles. Their fast and exquisite
flight maneuvers are controlled by rapid feedback from halteres; modified
hind wings that have evolved into mechanosensory organs. Halteres also
oscillate at wing beat frequencies but at precise phase relationship to the
wings. The two contralateral wings also oscillate precisely in-phase with
each other. Flies must maintain precise phase coordination between wings
and halteres for stable flight. This coordination occurs at rates that are
often difficult to achieve via active neural control. Our results show that
this rapid and yet coordination of wing and haltere motion is achieved by
passive, mechanical connections within the fly thorax instead of being
under active neural control. Coupled by mechanical linkages, wings and
halteres act as coupled oscillators. This mechanical coupling ensures
robust coordination even if there are slight differences in the natural
frequencies of wings and halteres due to developmental errors or
environmental damage for e.g. in flies with torn wings often seen in the
wild. In addition to the passive, rapid coordination flies use an actively
controlled clutch and gear box under each wing base which allows
independent control of individual wing motion despite being mechanically
connected. Passive mechanical coupling might be a general mechanism that
enables rapid coordination in various miniaturized insects like bees (order
Hymenoptera) and beetles (order Coleoptera).

One of the basic issues in evolutionary biology is to understand the mechanism(s) underlying the formation of new species, new units of diversity and of evolution. The more advanced the stage of speciation of two diverging populations, the more difficult to delineate the genetic/evolutionary events that has set the process in motion. In this regard, studies on Experimental evolution, wherein populations that are maintained for hundreds of generations in laboratory or controlled field manipulations facilitates to witness the evolutionary changes in real time and may throw light on the processes and patterns of events in nature. Introgressed populations resulting from the interracial hybridization between D. nasuta (2n = 8) and D. albomicans (2n = 6) form the material for the present study. The hybrid populations of these races can be maintained for any number of generations and as of now they have crossed over 700 generations in the environs of the laboratory. These hybrid populations are being maintained in different cages and each one of them is called a 'Cytorace' and there are 16 Cytoraces (C1 - C16). Parental races namely D. nasuta and D. albomicans and the newly evolved Cytoraces (C1 - C16) are grouped together and this cluster is named "nasuta-albomicans complex" - a new taxonomic unit. This 'allosympatric' assemblage of closely related forms has become a goldmine for studies on evolutionary cytogenetics. These cytogenetically closely related members are passing through the process of population differentiation reflecting different patterns of divergence for different sets of phenotypes such as karyotypes, neo-sex chromosomes, morhophenotypes, life history traits, mating behaviour with incipient isolation, Repetitive DNA, isozymes, glue proteins, a few gene loci such as sod1, Rpd3, Aly, and Rab etc. The members of this complex which are at different stages of divergence offer a rare and an unique opportunity to look into multidimensional process of raciation. I will summarize the results of these investigations and also of the ongoing studies and wish to share the pleasure and excitement we experienced during the course of this study.