• POSTDOC POSITION AVAILABLE
We will soon have a postdoctoral opening in our lab. More details will be posted HERE

• LAB TRIP TO UPPUTHARA, VAGAMON

From left: Nikhil, Kushankur, Anaswar, Bhanu, Shreya, Indukala, Ullasa, Akshaya, Akhil, Ullasa. Lab trip to Vagamon, Apr 2024.

From left: Akhil, Ullasa, Anaswara, Kushankur, Indukala, Shreya, Abin, Akshaya, Nikhil and Bhanu. Perunad, during lab trip to Vagamon, Apr 2024.

• GOPAL AWARDED AN INSPIRE FACULTY AWARD
Congratulations to Gopal Murali, former PhD student of Vanasiri, who has been awarded an INSPIRE Faculty Fellowship! After his PhD in our lab, Gopal did a postdoc at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel, and was then a Fulbright-Kalam postdoctoral fellowship at University of Arizona, United States.

Mar 2024
• ISBE (MELBOURNE) TRAVEL GRANTS TO ANASWARA AND AKHIL
Congratulations to Akhil and Anaswara, who have been awarded travel grants to attend the International Society for Behavioral Ecology (ISBE) Congress 2024 in Melbourne, Australia. They have been awarded USD 2500 each

• NEW POSTDOC KUSHANKUR JOINS US
Kushankur Bhattacharyya joined the lab as a postdoctoral fellow. He completed his PhD on the influence of monsoon on nesting behaviour of the ant Diacamma indicum from Annagiri Sumana's lab at IISER Kolkata.

Feb 2024
• TARUN, ANASWARA AND BHANU AT FRONTIER SYMPOSIUM
Tarunkishwor, Anaswara and Bhanu presented at the Frontiers Symposium at IISER Thiruvananthapuram. Tarunkishwor gave a talk on the evolution of false-head patterns in butterflies. Anaswara presented a poster on colour preference in ovipositing butterflies, while Bhanu had a poster on desiccation tolerance in butterflies

Jan 2024
• TALKS BY BHANU, AKHIL AND ULLASA AT INTER-IISER ECOLOGY MEETING
Ullasa, Bhanu and Akhil gave talks at the Inter-IISER Ecology Meeting at IISER Tirupati. Ullasa talked about our labs work on butterfly pupal plasticity. Akhil talked about how background matching interacts with disruptive colouration in protecting prey. Bhanu talked about evolution of desiccation tolerance in butterflies

• TWO POSTDOCTORAL POSITIONS
We have two postdoctoral positions! See HERE for more details

• CORE RESEARCH GRANT FROM DST-SERB
We got a Core Research Grant from DST-SERB! The project will focus on evolution of host-plant specialization.

• GOPAL'S PAPER ACCEPTED
Gopal Murali's paper, done in collaboration with Sami Merilaita, is accepted in Journal of Evolutionary Biology! This was a simulation study that explored evolution of colour polymorphism in relation to selection by predators

Oct 2023
• VISITING STUDENT - TAN PHAM
Tan Pham visited our lab to conduct experiments as part of our collaborative project with Freerk Molleman's group in Adam Mickiwicz University, Poland.

• INDUKALA'S FIRST PAPER ACCEPTED
One more student - Indukala - got her first paper accepted this year! Her study "Adaptive phenotypic plasticity of mandibles with respect to host plants" is now accepted in Arthropod-Plant Interactions<.. We show how butterflies can adopt invest differentially in mandibles depending on host plant traits, and how this can be adaptive.

Aug 2023
• SHREYA JOINS THE LAB
Shreya Mishra has joined her lab as a PhD student. We wish her the best for her career!

Jul 2023
• TARUN, INDUKALA AND ULLASA AT BIOLOGY OF BUTTERFLIES CONFERENCE, PRAGUE
Tarunkishwor, Indukala and Ullasa attended the Biology of Butterflies 2023 Conference at Prague. Ullasa had a keynote talk on pupal colour plasticity in butterlifes. Tarunkishwor had a talk on the evolution false-head patterns in butterflies, while Indukala had a talk on butterfly eyespots and the role of growth rate.

Jun 2023
• SNEHA'S FIRST PAPER ACCEPTED
Sneha Sadanand Joshi's paper "The ecology of hybrid zone formation and maintenance in Impatiens" has been accepted in International Journal of Plant Sciences! The study includes multiple field and lab experiments in which we mapped the narrow hybrid zone between two species, and investigated the ecology of this hybrid zone. Congratulations to Sneha on her first paper!

May 2023
• NEW MASTERS STUDENTS
We welcome three masters students for the year - Akshaya Jayan, Abin Krishna and Nikhil Collins.

Apr 2023
• MoE STARS GRANT
Our lab has received a STARS grant from MoE! The project will focus on evolution of desiccation tolerance in butterflies.

• AKHIL'S FIRST PAPER ACCEPTED
Akhil Sadiq's first paper accepted in Behavioural Ecology! The study, titled "Hiding among colors: background color diversity impedes detection time " explores how background properties can influence camouflage in prey animals.

• HARSHAD'S PAPER ACCEPTED
Harshad Mayekar's final paper from his thesis "Pupal colour-pupation substrate correlation in butterflies" is now accepted in Entomologia Experimentalis et Applicata. We demonstrate how pupal colour plasticity is tightly linked to substrate choice in a comparative experimental study across 5 butterfly species.

• LAB TRIP TO MEGHAMALAI
We had our yearly lab trip, this time to the lovely Meghamalai, Tamil Nadu. As usual, it was great couple of days of fun!

From left: Bhanu, Indukala, Ullasa, Arsha, Anaswara, Sneha, Tarun, Simran and Akhil. Lab trip to Meghamalai, Apr 2023.