The Centre for Ecological Sciences at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, will conduct the second annual DST-SERB sponsored School on Chemical Ecology, an intensive two-week-long course to provide an insight into state-of-the-art research areas of Chemical Ecology, with a special emphasis on research on animal venoms and poisons, and plant–animal interactions. Twenty-five young researchers, including masters students, PhD students, postdoctoral fellows and young faculty members, will be selected at the national level.

Dr Kartik Sunagar at Centre for Ecological Sciences has been awarded the prestigious Ramanujan Fellowship by SERB/DST.

Kartik Sunagar is an evolutionary biologist looking at mechanisms and evolution of venoms across taxa in the animal kingdom. His website https://www.venomicslab.com/ has more details of his work.

Internet based Course – Environment Management (XVI session), Sept-Dec 2018. For details: http://ces.iisc.ac.in/TVR/TVR_cce_Announce_EM-23March2018_REV.pdf

Photo Credit: Viraj Torsekar

On Open Day, CES students, faculty and staff came together to put up fun-filled displays and activities showcasing research in the department as well illustrating broader principles in ecology and evolution.

With live exhibits, videos, movie screening, posters, nature walks and, most importantly, games, the public could experience diverse facets of ecology and evolution.

CES Welcomes Applications for the PhD program.

Previous studies have argued that movement of organisms typically does not favour animals helping or cooperating each other. Therefore, in species that exhibit collective movement and fission-fusion among groups, cooperation is considered unlikely to occur. In a recent paper published in PLoS Computational Biology, Jaideep Joshi (PhD student), Vishwesha Guttal and collaborators from Germany and USA challenge this common perception.

Image credit: Deepak Veerappan

Deepak. V (a postdoc) and Praveen Karanth show that fan-throated lizards consist of at least 15 species, with much of the diversification dating back to 8–5 million years and possibly caused by climatic shifts in India in that period. This is one of the few studies that establishes a link between climate change and adaptation in the Indian subcontinent. The study also highlights the importance of the dry zone as centers of biodiversity.

By Senji Laxme R R

The Evolutionary Venomics Lab (www.venomicslab.com) led by Kartik Sunagar at the Centre for Ecological Sciences, IISc, in association with Kalinga Institute conducted a one-day workshop on snake identification, rescue and bite management for the representative divisions of the Karnataka Forest Department.

A new study published in the journal eLife shows that tree crickets manufacture surprisingly accurate optimal aids for sound amplification. This work was led by Natasha Mhatre (a former PhD student of CES), Rittik Deb (a recent PhD student of CES), Rohini Balakrishnan and collaborators from UK (Robert Malkin and Daniel Robert).