Month: March 2019

Roshnath received Dr. C Chandrasekharan Memorial Award 2018 by Kerala Forest Research Institute, Peechi for his outstanding contribution in the field of wildlife conservation and management in Kerala. The award includes a gold medal, a purse of Rs. 40,0000/ and a citation.

Roshnath contributed his research career for conservation of birds, herons and and heronries in particular! He initiated several outreach programs with the district and state administrators to give an awareness on the ecological roles of herons and the necessity to create a habitat for them!

Congratulations Roshnath!

Participants – the research scholars of CU Kerala – and resource persons, K.P. Madhu, Gita Madhu, and Karthik Ramaswamy, posing to a group photo of the workshop that Sinu and his colleagues in the Department of Animal Science has organised during 25-30 March 2019.

2019 opened with a busy meeting for all of us!

Prashanth Ballullaya attended the GIAN course on chemical ecology held at the University of Calicut in the first week of March 2019!

Sinu inaugurated and delivered the national science day lecture in SN College Cherthala on 21 February 2019!

Sinu gave an invited lecture on “Ant-plant-pollinator interaction” in the national seminar on Status and Diversity of Pollinators in India organized by ZSI-Kolkata!

Sinu gave a keynote lecture on “Interdisciplinary science” in the research meet held at Sacred Heart College, Thevara!

Sinu, Manoj, Sangeetha, Thomas, and Anjana attended the 2nd Asian Bee Meeting held at NCBS-Bangalore!

Our JRFs Sudip and Sumit have moved to IISER-Trivandrum and Mumbai recently for their Ph.D. programs. All the best!

They are now replaced by Anjana Unni and Thomas Jose. Welcome! We look forward to work with you!

We have had Dr. Sajjad Mir, a teacher winter research fellow of Indian Academy of Science, Bangalore recently in our lab! He completed his short research on ant-bee arms-race in agricultural crops with Anjana Unni in the lab. Dr. Sajjad is an Assistant Professor in the Agricultural University of Kashmir. He was with us for two months in winter.

Roshnath’s paper on “Whether predation drives heronry birds to nest in urban landscape?” has been now accepted and published online in the Journal of Asia-Pacific Biodiversity! Roshnath is committed for the betterment of his species, Heronry birds, in the urban landscape. He is also involved in various outreach activities with the district and state administrations for the conservation of heronry birds!

Congratulations and all the best Roshnath!

Five members of the lab – Sangeetha Varma, Manoj, K., Anjana Unni, Thomas Jose and Sinu – attended the 2nd Asian Bee meeting held at NCBS-Bangalore during 1-2 March 2019! While Sinu gave an invited talk on Herbivorous bees, the scholars gave student talks on their research on bees and pollinators in the meeting!

The meeting was attended by the faculty, experts, and students of various pollination and bee labs across India and Asia.

The Project Fellow, Iswar Kumar Chettri won the first prize in the poster presentation competition held during the National Seminar on “Status and Diversity of Pollinators in India” organized by the ENVIS centre on Fauna Biodiversity and Zoological Survey of India, New Alipore, Kolkata -53 on 8 March 2019! He gave a presentation on “Pollination status of large cardamom after a decade”. He compared the pollination efficiency of the crop in Darjeeling for 2006 and 2018.

Iswar is receiving memento from the Director of ZSI and other dignitaries