The Centre for Ecological Sciences conducts research in a wide range of frontier areas in ecology, such as dynamics of animal and plant populations and communities as well as how interactions between different scales and levels of biological organization together with environmental drivers can generate and maintain patterns of biodiversity in space and time. To this end, researchers at the Centre conduct short and long term ecological field studies, laboratory studies on plant-animal interactions, sensory ecology and ecophysiology of organisms, and quantification of diversity via genes. Many of the faculty use quantitative techniques (statistical, computational and mathematical) to build synthetic models of complex ecological systems to enhance the predictive power of ecological theories.

Faculty working in areas related to ecological research are:

Sumanta Bagchi: Ecosystem function and services; Plant-herbivore interactions; Coupled-human natural ecosystems.

Rohini Balakrishnan: Ecology of sensory perception; Estimating species diversity through acoustics; Habitat ecology .

Renee M. Borges: Plant–animal interactions; Mutualistic, symbiotic and parasitic interactions; Multitrophic systems.

Vishwesha Guttal: Theoretical and mathematical ecology; Early warning signals of catastrophic changes in ecological systems; Spatial and temporal dynamics of complex systems.

Kavita Isvaran: Ecology of invasive species; Ecology of mosquito reproductive behaviour and its consequences for population dynamics.

Praveen Karanth: Molecular ecology and biogeography.

Kartik Shanker: Community assembly; Diversity and distribution; Macroecology; Ecology of marine turtles.

Raman Sukumar: Long-term dynamics of forest tree communities in relation to climate and fire; Impact of elephants and human disturbance.

Maria Thaker: Predator-prey interactions; Ecophysiology.

Umesh Srinivasan: Ecosystems and Global climate change

Saskya van Nouhuys: Species interactions; Insect-plant interactions; Spatial population dynamics; Trophically structured communities