Behavioural and Evolutionary Ecology Laboratory
The BEE lab’s participation at the Frontier Symposium, 2nd-4th Feb 2024 at IISER TVM. Manish and Amal presented posters of their work. Sudeep gave a flash-talk.
Pictures: Manish (left pic) and Amal (right pic) presenting their work to the audience.
Picture Courtesy: Dr. Sajesh Vijayan
Prof. Martha R. Weiss from Georgetown University gave a talk on the 14th of Nov 2023, about resource pulses (a sudden increase of resources), where she spoke about the emergence of periodical cicadas and their ecology. She also shed some light on how their emergence affected the trophic cascade in the ecosystem.
Dr. Divya Uma from Azim Premji University spoke about the commensal spiders Philoponella feroka and their interactions on the webs of Indian social spiders on the 15th of Nov 2023. She talked about how the web area and maintenance affect the abundance of these commensals. She also gave insights into the interaction between these two species on prey-capturing approaches.
Left picture: Prof. Weiss presenting her work; Right picture: Dr. Uma delivering the talk.
Lab group photo(Read from top left, clockwise): Aakash, Sajesh, Prof. Hema, Prof. Weiss, Manish, Vishwathiga, Aparna, Kavya, Malavika, Sudeep, Nandhu, Dr. Divya, Sanath, Amal, Gifty and Azmi.
Pic courtesy: Aakash Kumar Pathak and Gifty Alin Jacob
Aakash and Sanath have joined the lab for their PhDs in the monsoon intake of 2023. We welcome both of you!
Dr. Sangeetha Varma joins the lab as a post-doctoral fellow under the Chief Minister’s NavaKerala Postdoctoral fellowship programe. All the very best to you!
Amal, Kavya, Manish, Sachin, and Sudeep presented a part of their works during the poster presentation sessions. Sajesh and Dr. Baheerathan presented their work as an oral presentation at the ATBC 2023, held at Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India from 2nd-6th of July 2023.
Manish bags the ‘Gentry Award for the Best poster’ at the ATBC 2023.
Well presented all of you’ll!
Pic Courtesy: Dr. Baheerathan, Sachin Bhaskar and Sajesh Vijayan
Asmi successfully defends her thesis on the 3rd of July 2023 titled ‘Visual ecology of Tetragonula iridipennis‘. Her work ranged from anatomical to behavioral to field-based observations related to her study species. The defense lasted for more than an hour. She has paved her way into the scientific world of stingless bees. We wish her all the very best in her future endeavors.
Asmi Jeezera is the runner-up for the poster prize at FS-BIO_2023 held at IISER-TVM.
Vivek Nithyananda from Newcastle University, England had given a talk on 18th Jan 2023. He explained how stress-induced states affect cognitive decision-making in the bumblebees. He also spoke about emotion-like states called affective states in the bumblebees.
Yuval Sapir from Tel-Aviv University, Israel spoke about the evolution of flower color variation on the 19th Jan 2023. He spoke about the flower color dimorphism in Linum pubescens through the differential behaviour of its major pollinator, thereby showing us an example of balancing selection in flowers. He also spoke about the pleiotropic effect on color variation as an adaptation towards climatic factors in Anemone flowers. Lastly, he also shed some light about the continuous flower color variation in the Royal Irises.
Photo courtesy: Sudeep R
People inset (Left to Right): Kavya Mohan, Sudeep R, Amal K Vyas, Dr. Yuval Sapir, Prof. Hema Somanathan, Sajesh Vijayan, Dr. Vivek Nithyananda, Manish Ravi, Siva Subramaniam, Asmi Jezeera, Arya Devi, Sachin Bhaskar, Dr. Baheerathan Murugavel, Aparna Pradeep, Kaustubh Verma
Baheerathan successfully defends his thesis on the 16th of Dec 2022, titled ‘Visual ecology of pteropodid bats of southern India’. The defense lasted for more than an hour and it was very engaging. He has made his way to the scientific world of bats! Congratulations Bahee, we will remember your passion for bats and may you mentor more bat enthusiasts.
Manish has been awarded the prestigious PMRF for his Ph.D. We are extremely proud of this. All the very best for your endeavours.