People – BEE Lab

Hema Somanathan

Born and brought up in Chennai, I completed my BSc from the University of Madras and obtained an MS in Ecology from School of Ecology, Pondicherry University. Subsequently I pursued my PhD from the University of Bombay working on plant-pollinator interactions. From 2006-2009, I was a Wenner-Gren postdoctoral fellow at Lund University, Sweden. During this period I worked on the sensory ecology of nocturnal and diurnal bees. I have been a faculty in the School of Biology at IISER Thiruvananthapuram since August 2009. In my research group we work with bees, bats and spiders to understand mutualistic interactions and the organisation of social groups.
PhD Students


			
						
				   
				      
				         
				         
				            
				               Kavya Mohan N
				               PhD student				            
 
				            
				                Kavya completed her BS-MS from IISER Pune, where she was part of various projects on plant ecophysiology. She worked on thermotolerance of woody perennial species for her master’s thesis. Currently, she is working on plant-pollinator networks in the Eastern Ghats.
				            
 
				         
				      
				      
				   
				
							
				   
				      
				         
				         
				            
				               Sudeep R
				               PhD student				            
 
				            
				                Sudeep did his bachelor’s in zoology and his master’s in Animal Science from Central University of Kerala, Kasaragod. He worked on bird biodiversity and ecology during this period. He worked as a summer research fellow at National Institute of Animal Biotechnology, Hyderabad on brucellosis, where he explored the outer membrane proteins involved in downregulation of TNFα in host. He was a project fellow at Central university of Kerala, Kasaragod under Dr. Sinu P.A. on floral constancy in bees.
				            
 
				         
				      
				      
				   
				
							
				   
				      
				         
				         
				            
				               Sachin Bhaskar
				               PhD Student				            
 
				            
				                Sachin, based in Bangalore, completed his graduation in plant sciences from St. Joseph’s College. He studied the flower-trap behaviour of Aristolochia ringens for his master’s thesis. After graduation, he pursued an internship under Dr. Giby Kuriakose to understand the influence of flower alterations on insect visitation in Centrosema virginianum. His Ph.D. focuses on structuring the plant-pollinator and cheater interactions in the southern Western Ghats using floral traits. He also studies nocturnal plant-pollinator interactions. Apart from these, he also documents traditional medicines and recipes from South India, and enjoys archery.
				            
 
				         
				      
				      
				   
				
							
				   
				      
				         
				         
				            
				               Amal K Vyas
				               PhD Student				            
 
				            
				                Amal completed his BS-MS in Biological sciences from IISER Bhopal where he worked on pollinator competition and partitioning in sympatric mass flowering Impatiens for his master’s thesis. He joined the lab as a Junior Research Fellow in February 2021 and resumed his work as a graduate student by August 2021. Currently, he is looking into the population biology of the genus Apis in India from a morphological and molecular perspective. Apart from academics, he is a music buff and a history enthusiast
				            
 
				         
				      
				      
				   
				
							
				   
				      
				         
				         
				            
				               Manish R
				               PhD Student				            
 
				            
				                Manish, based in Salem, Tamil Nadu has completed his undergraduate studies at Agricultural College and Research Institute, Madurai. He obtained his Master’s degree from the Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi. He has specialized in Plant Pathology, where he has studied the diversity of phytoplasmas associated with multiple bamboo species. Presently, he is working on the diversity of pollinators under different ecosystems in the Western Ghats. Outside scholastics, he’s obsessed with reading, music, and stargazing.


				            
 
				         
				      
				      
				   
				
							
				   
				      
				         
				         
				            
				               Kaustubh Verma
				               PhD student				            
 
				            
				                Kaustubh completed his schooling in Dehradun and completed BS-MS from IISER Mohali. For his master’s thesis, he looked at the complexity and geographical variation in the breeding song of the Purple Sunbird. He is interested in the behavior of birds and insects. Aside from academics, he loves nature photography and astronomy.
 
				            
 
				         
				      
				      
				   
				
							
				   
				      
				         
				         
				            
				               Aakash Kumar Pathak
				               PhD student				            
 
				            
				                Aakash is from Allahabad, UP. He has a master’s in Ecology from Pondicherry University, for his master’s thesis, he worked at Azim Premji University, Bangalore. He looked at how hunger affects hunting participation and frequency preferences in the Indian social spider Stegodyphus sarasinorum. He has also worked on community interactions and the effect of anthropogenic factors on the meso-carnivore community in Gujarat as a field intern in a project at NCBS Bangalore.

Here, he will be working on the problems related to the behavioural and evolutionary ecology of Indian social spiders.
In his free time, he binge-watches movies and series, goes on herping, birding and trekking and he calls himself an astrophile.
				            
 
				         
				      
				      
				   
				
							
				   
				      
				         
				         
				            
				               Sanath R M
				               PhD student				            
 
				            
				                Sanath is an agriculture graduate with a specialization in entomology. His master’s thesis focused on non-Apis bee pollinators in the Western Ghats of Karnataka. Growing up in the foothills of Western Ghats, the croaking Minerverya frogs, and the notorious Racket-tailed drongo ignited his ardent curiosity in the natural world. He is interested in understanding insect and spider ecology from a conservation perspective, especially the impact of human-induced land-use degradation on ecosystem services. Before beginning his PhD journey, He worked with the Nature Conservation Foundation (NCF), contributing to projects involving long-term vegetation plot assessments and nocturnal insect pollinator monitoring.
In his leisure time, you’ll often find him carefully turning leaves to spot critters and sometimes photographing them too:)
				            
 
				         
				      
				      
				   
				
							
				   
				      
				         
				         
				            
				               Tejashwi Pindolia
				               				            
 
				            
				                Tejashwi completed her graduation in Life sciences from the Central University of Gujarat. Observing the invasive Prosopis juliflora in her native town sparked an enduring fascination with the ecology of plants. Having focused on plant ecology during her bachelor’s internship at the Gujarat Institute of Desert Ecology, she studied protein-protein interaction for her master’s dissertation at NCCS, Pune. Here, she will be researching on the thermal ecology of flowers and its impact on plant-pollinator interactions. Outside research, she loves reading about fiction and history.
 
				            
 
				         
				      
				      
				   
				
							
				   
				      
				         
				         
				            
				               Rohan Dandavate
				               				            
 
				            
				                Rohan completed his B.S. M.S. dual degree from IISER Bhopal. For his M.S. project in the Tropical Ecology and Evolution (TrEE) Lab, he contributed to the pollen library of plants from the Kaas Plateau in the Western Ghats and studied the foraging behaviour of the Indian honeybee, Apis cerana indica.
In the BEE Lab, he is interested in exploring various aspects of nocturnal pollination, including plant and pollinator behaviour;  memory and cognition, and non-visual sensory modalities in bees.
Outside of research, Rohan enjoys cooking, reading, and writing, and is an avid cinephile.