News
2024 #
August 2024
- Mongabay India covers our pika paper in the Journal of Mammalogy. Read more here.
July 2024
- Three from the Sciurid Lab get awarded degrees at the Convocation - Nivetha Murugesan and Harsha Kumar get their PhD degrees (the first two from the Sciurid Lab!), and Kavitha Unni gets her Masters degree (our seventh in-house MS thesis).
- Nandini Rajamani attends Sci Foo Camp 2024 in Cambridge, UK.
June 2024
- Nivetha Murugesan defends her dissertation titled "Evolution of color and pattern traits in squirrels: an integrative approach".
- Harsha Kumar defends his dissertation titled "Adaptations of pikas to alpine stressors of the Tibetan Marginal Mountains".
- Our paper on haying behaviour in pikas is published in the Journal of Mammalogy. https://doi.org/10.1093/jmamma...
- The lab attends IWEC 2024, where multiple people present their work. IISER Tirupati researchers and alumni represent! More here https://x.com/swatiudayraj/sta...
May 2024
- Kavitha Unni, BSMS student at IISER Tirupati, defends her Masters thesis titled "Understanding patterns of sympatry and resource partitioning in mesocarnivores", a collaborative project with Dr Shomita Mukherjee, SACON-WII.
March 2024
- Swati Udayraj presents at the EnviroSummit 2024 at MIT-WPU Pune on 1st March 2024, and wins the Best thematic talk award (Urban Ecology) for her talk titled "Impervious surface area and tree cover predict palm squirrel occupancy across a forest to urban gradient". Authors:Swati Udayraj, Aravind PS, Rakesh Kumar Muni, Senan D’Souza, Anupama M Devi, Rithika S, Debarpita Das, Sushma HS, and Nandini Rajamani.
2023 #
November
- Nivetha Murugesan presents her PhD pre-synopsis talk titled 'The Evolution of coat colour and patterns in palm squirrels: An integrative approach'.
October
- Swati Udayraj published a database methods paper and Version 1 of the Squirrels of South Asia database on the GBIF platform.
- Swati Udayraj wins 1st Prize for Most Observations by a Woman Observer with iNaturalist. India's Nature-Monsoon Beauty 2023 powered by iNaturalist.
July
- Eight lab members present talks, speed talks, and posters at the 59th Annual Conference of the Association of Tropical Biology and Conservation at Coimbatore between 02-06 July 2023. More here.
- Harsha Kumar presents his PhD pre-synopsis talk titled 'Evolution and adaptive significance of burrowing in Lagomorphs'.
June
- Nandini presents gives a talk synthesising our work at colour and camouflage in palm squirrels at the Understanding Behaviour conference, IISER Kolkata between 27-30 June 2023.
March
- Swati Udayraj wins 2nd Prize for Most Observations by a Woman Observer with iNaturalist. India's Nature-Monsoon Beauty 2022 powered by iNaturalist.
February
- Harsha Kumar wins the Best Poster Presentation award at the 4th Annual Conference of ISEB. Poster title: Evolution of lifestyle and associated behavioural traits in Lagomorphs, by Harsha Kumar, Nandini Rajamani.
- Harsha, Nivetha and Swati present talks and posters at the 4th Annual Conference of ISEB at Ahmedabad University between 9-11 February 2023.
- Harsha Jagadeesh wins 3rd position at Talk Your Thesis(#TYT2023) event at India Science Fest 2023. Talk title: "It's a Squirrel Thing".
2022 #
November
- Swati Udayraj presents a talk on our work on the Squirrels of India database at the Cit Sci India conference. Talk title: Building a Database using Unconventional Sources: Squirrels of India, by Swati Udayraj, Senan D'Souza, Aravind P S, Nandini Rajamani
October
- Swati Udayraj presents a talk on our work on the Squirrels of India database at the TDWG 2022 conference. Talk title: Building a Database using Unconventional Sources: Squirrels of India, by Swati Udayraj, Senan D'Souza, Aravind P S, Nandini Rajamani.
- The Ladakh field season draws to a close. Big ups to the team of interns and lab-members who helped in data collection. Shout-out to 'Technology for Wildlife Foundation' with whom, the Sciurid Lab is collaborating, on some exciting drone technology.
September
- After months of work spread out over the year, the field work on the occurrence of palm squirrels across the Tirupati landscape is complete. Kudos to the large team of interns and lab members!
June
- Mingyur Rigzen's article on conserving glaciers in Ladakh titled "Melting Glaciers And Human Adaptability" is published in Sanctuary Asia, Vol. 42 No. 6, June 2022. https://sanctuarynaturefoundat...
- Rithika S, MSc Ecology student at Pondicherry University, defends her Master's thesis titled "A study on the usage of a citizen science platform as a tool for biodiversity analysis across the urban-rural gradient of Tirupati".
May
- A batch of interns complete their internship on the 'Squirrels of India' database.
- Harsha Jagadeesh, BSMS IISER Tirupati, submits her Master's thesis titled " A study on camouflage-influenced behavioural decisions in Funambulus palmarum".
- Keerthi O., BSMS IISER Tirupati, submits her Master's thesis titled "Coat colouration and camouflage advantages in giant squirrels in the genus Ratufa".
April
- The Eastern Ghats Symposium 2022 was held on 30th April and 1st May at the Marasa Sarovar, Tirupati, organised by Dr. Nandini Rajamani and team. The symposium brought together researchers, managers and policy-makers who have worked in the landscape in the last two decades or more, in an attempt to consolidate existing knowledge, and promote dialogue and collaborations.
2021 #
December
- The Giant Squirrels Of Palani, by Sanjay Prasad (lab alum). First published in Sanctuary Asia, Vol. 41 No. 12, December 2021.
November
- In the den of marmots, by Janaki Lenin. The Hindu dated 13th November, 2021
- Publication: Scientific contributions and learning experiences of citizen volunteers with a small cat project in Sanjay Gandhi National Park, Mumbai, India.
October
- Harsha Kumar and colleagues from IISER Tirupati publish a new butterfly record (Alida Angle) for Tirupati.
June
- Mrugank Dake, BSMS IISER Tirupati, submits his Master's thesis titled "Statistical and machine learning approaches to squirrel acoustics".
- Anushesh Nigam, BSMS IISER Tirupati, submits his Master's thesis titled "Macronutrient analysis of three-striped palm squirrel's diet".
May
Common, yet threatened: The case of northeast India’s Malayan giant squirrels
Hop, Skip and Jump: The Giant Squirrels of India, by RG Sustain
January
- Article in the Mid-Day titled 'Meet the squirrels of India', about species of squirrels found in India and the sciurid lab's social media outreach initiative.
2020 #
October
- Nandini presents our crowdsourced palm squirrel work titled "Cataloguing and mapping life of India: Biodiversity informatics in India", a webinar that is part of the series Biodiversity Conversations: India’s opportunities and challenges.
- Pooja Gupta begins her art-science research scholarship with Creature Conserve in collaboration with the Sciurid Lab.
- Nandini begins term as the Secretary of the Ethological Society of India.
September
- Amira Sophia SP, Masters's student at AVC Mayiladuthurai College, submits her Master's thesis titled "A study on the acoustics of Malabar giant squirrel, Ratufa indica, in Kodaikanal".
- CitSci India 2020 virtual conference, where the lab presents two posters - one on Squirrels (Bishwarup, Senan, Swati, Aravind) and one on Moths (Harsha, Suyash, Senan, Viral). Nandini is on the Steering Committee of the event and co-author on a poster with researchers from SACON.
August
- Nandini joins the Editorial Board of Cheetal, Journal of the Wildlife Preservation Society of India, Dehradun.
July
- Nandini joins the Editorial Board of the journal Nature Communications Biology.
June
- Shijisha AC, BSMS IISER Tirupati, submits her Masters thesis titled "Evolution of coat colour variation in palm squirrels: An image analysis of museum specimens".
- Pranav Unnikrishnan, BSMS IISER Tirupati, submits his Masters thesis titled "Explaining the evolution of colour & patterns in squirrels using meta-analyses and experimental approaches".
May
- Logging poses a threat to the arboreal Travancore flying squirrel, by Viswajit Sriramrajan.
- Vanishing wizards of the night, by Janaki Lenin.
April
March
- A Day of Life - the first annual Biology Day at IISER Tirupati. Talk by Nandini about how the lab studies adaptations at various scales. Two posters from the Sciurid Lab-one featuring work in the Trans-Himalayas (Senan and Harsha) and another on selection for signals in tree squirrels (Nivetha, Shijisha, Amira, Suyash).
February
- Science Day at IISER Tirupati. The lab turns out in full force, with a high-altitude photo booth and a squirrel camouflage game on three iPads.
- The Sciurid Lab gets artwork and t-shirts!
2019 #
December
- A reconnaissance field trip/ joint lab retreat - Sciurid and Bird labs at Pulicat.
- Talk at SV University (Nandini)
- Two talks (Harsha, Nandini) and a poster (Nivetha) at the National Symposium on Avian Biology, organised at IISER Tirupati.
- Bioblitz at the Tirupati Bird Festival. Talk by Nandini, massive participation by the lab (nature walks, workshops, etc).
November
- The first Tirupati Urban Diversity Blitz, organised by the Eco-Evo labs at IISER Tirupati!
- The Tirupati Biodiversity website goes live.
- Invited Talk at “Topics in Biology 2019: Evolution and Ecology” at IMSC Chennai (Nandini).
June
- Athira Aravind, Masters student at Mar Athanasios College For Advanced Studies, submits her Master's thesis titled "Amplification and Sequence Analysis of Nuclear gene (EMB) of Indian Euphorbia species".
- Evolution 2019 meeting (ASN/SSB/SSE) at Providence, RI, USA. Talk (Nandini) and poster (Harsha).
April
- Athira Aravind, Master's student at Mar Athanasios College For Advanced Studies, submits her Masters thesis titled "Amplification and Sequence Analysis of Nuclear gene (EMB) of Indian Euphorbia species"
March
- Invited Seminar at IIT Tirupati (Nandini)
- Talk at SACON (Nandini)
2018 #
December
- Poster presentations (Aravind, Dhanesh, Senan, Swati) at the 42nd Annual Conference of the Ethological Society of India, and a poster award (Dhanesh and Aravind).
September
- The first Sciurid Lab retreat; at Periyar & Kodaikanal.
April
- Dhanesh P, Master's student at AVC College Mayiladuthurai, submits his Master's thesis titled "Nest site selection in Funambulus palmarum."
March
- Poster presentation by Nandini at YIM 2018, Thiruvananthapuram.
February
- Talk by Nandini at the Humboldt Kolleg on ‘Climate Change and Energy Options’ at Aurangabad.
January
- Poster presentations at YETI 2018 (Harsha, Nivetha, Senan, Swati, Shijisha).
2017 #
September
- Talk by Nandini at National Seminar on Himalayan Biodiversity, University of Kashmir, Srinagar
- Poster presentation (Mihir, Nandini) at the International Biogeography Society meeting, Bangalore.
- The lab attends the Student Conference on Conservation Science (SCCS), Bangalore.