News

December

Hema gave an invited lecture titled’Lights, Colour, Action: Vision in diurnal and nocturnal insects’ at the EMBO India Lecture course on Neuroethology – how the brain controls natural behaviours held at IISER Pune.

October

Hema gave a plenary talk titled ‘Moonlight mutualisms’ at the Indian Society of Evolutionary Biologists (ISEB7), held at IISER Berhampur.

Bhavya Dharmaraj was awarded the ANRF – National Post Doctoral Fellowship. Congrats Bhavya!

August

Several members of the lab attended the XXXVIII International Ethological Congress, Behaviour 2025 in Kolkata, India. Hema, Manish, Kaustubh, and Avani gave talks. Sudeep, Sachin, Navya and Smriti presented posters.

BES Travel Awards for Behavior 2025 were awarded to Sachin & Smriti

Dakshin Foundation & CES, IISc Grant for Behaviour 2025 for Avani

Navya won the award for the Best Poster in the Undergraduate Category.

June

Hema gave a plenary talk at the  Indian conference on Conservation (ICCON 25) at WII, Dehradun, titled ‘Sensory and cognitive ecology of bees’

July

Avani, Navya, and Smriti completed their M.S. projects in the lab and received their B.S – M.S. degrees. Congrats to the new graduates!

Hema gave an invited talk titled ‘ Bees and our shared future’ at the 110 years of Zoological Survey of India conference, Kolkata.

Bhavya joined the lab as a Postdoctoral Fellow.

May

Aakash was awarded the Vincent Roth Fund for Systematics Research (VRF) by the American Arachnological Society. Congrats Aakash!

March

Asmi completed her tenure as a Postdoctoral Researcher in the lab and joined as a Dairy Instructor with the Kerala Dairy Farmers Welfare Board. Congratulations Asmi!

Hema gave an invited talk titled ‘Left in the dark: ‘Nocturnal pollinators and the plants they service in a brightly-lit world’ at the Journal of Experimental Biology – Company of Biologists symposium in Liverpool, UK.

January

Shatarupa joined the lab as a Postdoctoral Fellow.

Rohan joined the lab as a Ph.D. student in the Vasanth semester of 2025.
He has a BS-MS degree from IISER Bhopal.

Sachin has been awarded the Small Research Grant (spring 2024) from the British Ecological Society, London, for his work on co-flowering communities in the shola grasslands.

Additionally, he was also awarded a seed grant from the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation (2024), for his work on flower-cheater dynamics in the southern Western Ghats, India.

Tejashwi joins the lab as a PhD student for the monsoon intake of 2024.

A very warm welcome!

Manish attended the International Union for the Study of Social Insects to give an oral talk at Laussane, Switzerland. (7th-11th July 2024)

Sachin attended the International Botanical Congress to give a poster presentation at IFEMA, Madrid, Spain. (21st to 27th July 2024)

Dr. Asmi Jezeera rejoins the lab as a post-doctoral researcher. She will be working on understanding the effect of pesticides on the native honey bee species in India.

A very warm welcome to you!

Sajesh is awarded the HFSP fellowship to carry out his post-doctoral research work at Western University, under Dr. Natasha Mhatre.

We wish him all the very best.

Sudeep receives the ISEB travel grant to attend the 19th ISEB Congress in Melbourne, Australia. This will allow him to present his work on the floral constancy of Apis dorsata to the international community.

We are very happy for him and wish him all the best.

Amal attended the Sixth Bangalore School on Population Genetics and Evolution at the International Centre for Theoretical Sciences. The school spanned over two weeks from 12th Feb to 23rd Feb 2024, to teach experimental evolution, molecular evolution, and population genetics.

Sajesh gets a post-doctoral fellowship in Dr. Natasha Mhatre’s Lab at the Western university, Canada. We wish him all the best for his work! See you soon!

Sajesh Vijayan successfully defended his Ph.D. Thesis on the 14^th of February 2024. His thesis was on understanding the behavioral and visual ecology of the Asian giant honeybee Apis dorsata. His work involved both behavioral and field-based studies of his study species. The defense lasted for more than an hour and was very engaging. He has successfully paved his way to the scientific field of honeybees! Congratulations Sajesh, may you mentor more bee enthusiasts.

      

 

Picture: Dr. Sajesh with Prof. Gadagkar and Prof. Hema and a Beehive (Left), The lab dinner for Dr. Sajesh’s defense (Right).