The Lodha Genius Programme (LGP) at Ashoka University, Haryana, offers high school students a unique opportunity to engage in real-world science and mathematics. Through hands-on experiences in fields like ecological sciences, students are encouraged to ask big questions, participate in fieldwork, and explore their scientific interests.
In the heart of Bannerghatta National Park, Karnataka, A Rocha India has introduced the Elephant Anti-Depredation Dog Squad (EaDDS) to tackle rising human-elephant conflicts. Utilising trained Belgian Malinois dogs, this initiative aims to preemptively detect and deter elephants from entering farmlands, fostering harmonious coexistence between communities and wildlife.
Posted on in Environmental Sciences, Ecology & Wildlife Biology
Brinky Desai, a PhD student at Ahmedabad University, shares her challenges as a woman researcher conducting fieldwork on Mugger crocodiles in remote areas of Gujarat. In the first article of this year's PhD Cafe series, she describes the physical and mental strain of fieldwork, particularly during the COVID pandemic, as well as the challenges of working with crocodiles, including navigating hygiene facilities as a woman researcher in the field.
Posted on in Ecology, Women in Science & Personal Experience
![Mahesh Sankaran [Source: ISF]](https://cdn.indiabioscience.org/imager/articles/334504/Untitled-design-5_4b32b63c5c28c858e051e9d1a2a717a1.png)
Mahesh Sankaran is Professor at the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS), Bengaluru where he heads the Community and Ecosystems Ecology lab. He is the recipient of the Infosys Prize 2021 for Life Sciences, the first ecologist to have won this prestigious award. In this interview, he talks about his work on grasslands and climate change, and on winning the Infosys Prize. The interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Speak of comfort zones! In this article, Abhijeet Bayani, a field biologist and an educator at the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, disentangles the meanings and purposes of three terms commonly used in ecological studies to discuss the space in which an organism thrives – habitats, microhabitats and niches.
What’s the measure of species diversity of a habitat? Is it the number of inhabitants? Is it the number of species? Or is it the presence of a rare species? In this article, field biologist Abhijeet Bayani throws light on how he approaches this question of species ‘diversity’ in his classroom (a.k.a nature), while ensuring that his undergraduate students do not confuse it with a very related concept of species ‘richness’.
Posted on in Ecology, Conservation Biology, Wildlife Biology, Teaching, Undergraduate & Education
Andrea D. Phillott, Professor in Environmental Studies, teaches Conservation Biology, Ecology, and Environmental Studies at FLAME University, Pune. In this article, she writes about an innovative approach she has followed to develop disciplinary literacy in her students viz., assigning them readings from popular literature, both fiction and non-fiction, pertaining to conservation science.