Browsing Centre for Ecological Sciences (CES) by Title
Now showing items 59-78 of 89
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Resource allocation patterns and strategies in the mutualism between figs and fig wasps
Mutualism involves exchange of services and rewards between the partners, resulting in a net benefit to all those involved. In many mutualisms, hosts are larger partners that interact with several individuals of smaller ... -
Resource, Use, Culture And Ecological Change: A Case Study Of The Nilgiri Hills Of Southern India
(Indian Institute of Science, 2005-09-01)Over the last two decades, there have been increasing concerns about environmental degradation and its consequences on the long-term sustainability of socio-economic systems around the world. The publication of the report ... -
Risks of finding mates in the wild: Ecological and Behavioural Determinants of Sex-biased Predation
Sex-biased predation occurs when one sex of a prey species is consumed more than the other, irrespective of their relative availability (sex-ratio). Some of the potential factors leading to sex- biased predation are sex ... -
The Role of Nursery Size and Plant Phenology on the Reproduction of and Relationships within a Fig-fig Wasp Nursery Pollination System
(2018-05-09)Obligate nursery pollination mutualisms such as the fig–fig wasp system, with their central plant–pollinator mutualism associated with non-pollinating satellite wasp species, can function as closed system microcosms ... -
Seed Dispersal In The Tropical Dry Forests Of Mudumalai, Southern India
(2011-06-30)Plants depend on a wide variety of vectors, both biotic and abiotic, to move their seeds to locations away from parent plants. The stages between seed production and seedling establishment in the plant life cycle are under ... -
Sensory Ecology Of Acoustic Communication In The Tropical Bushcricket Genus Mecopoda : Mechanisms And Evolution Of Synchrony
(2009-07-10)In this thesis, I characterise five species of the bushcricket genus Mecopoda with respect to their acoustic signals and morphology and investigate the phenomenon of acoustic synchrony in one of these five species: Mecopoda ... -
Sexual Selection On Elephant Tusks
(2017-06-12)Darwin was troubled by elaborate male traits observed in many species that are seemingly maladaptive for survival, the peacock’s tail being the most iconic of all. He wrote "The sight of a feather in a peacock’s tail, ... -
Social Organisation And Cooperation In Genetically Mixed Colonies Of The Primitively Eusocial Wasp, Ropalidia Marginata
(Indian Institute of Science, 2005-08-05)Altruism in its extreme form is seen in social insects where most individuals give up their own reproduction and work to rear the offspring of their queen. The origin and evolution of such sterile worker castes remains a ... -
Soil microorganisms and biogeochemical cycles in a grazing ecosystem: interactions between producers, consumers, and decomposers
Microorganisms are the unseen majority that determines ecosystem processes, they perform biogeochemical functions that translate into essential services, and regulate global climate. In grazing ecosystems, which represent ... -
Spatial and Coevolutionary Dynamics of Cooperation
Cooperation is ubiquitous across taxa in the animal kingdom. For example, microbes cooperate in producing antibiotic-resistant biofilms, mammals and birds collectively mob predators, and humans cooperate in utilization of ... -
Spatial and temporal patterns of vegetation- climate interactions
In this thesis, I tried to understand the patterns and processes of vegetation trends at different spatial scales and resolution. The spatial variability in vegetation trends was related to inter and intra-annual changes ... -
Spatial Variation In Interactions Of The Semi-Myrmecophyte Humboldtia Brunonis (Fabaceae) With Ants And Other Invertebrates
(2010-06-01)Despite a long history of investigations on protective ant-plant interactions, since the late 19century (Thomas Belt 1874), a comprehensive quantitative understanding of the adaptations that facilitate these associations ... -
Species Ranges, Richness and Replacement of Trees in the Evergreen Forests of the Western Ghats
(2018-05-14)It has been more than two centuries since the latitudinal pattern of increase in taxonomic richness from poles to equator was first documented. After two centuries of research, and with more than two dozen hypotheses ... -
Stress Physiology of Free-ranging Asian Elephants (Elephas maximus) : Influence of Ecological and Anthropogenic Stressors
(2018-07-09)Various ecological and human-induced disturbances play an important role in defining the health of an animal. To cope up with such threats or challenges to its homeostasis, an animal responds by secreting stress hormones ... -
Structure and Dynamics of a Tropical Dry Forest Plant Community
This thesis is spurred by the overarching question “why is a plant where it is in space and time?”, which, when asked in different global communities over the last century or so, has contributed to the development of general ... -
The Structure And Function Of The Vocal Repertoire Of The Greater Racket-Tailed Drongo (Dicrurus paradiseus) : Insights Into Avian Vocal Mimicry
(2017-07-12)Sound is used as a medium for communication by taxa as varied as insects, fish, amphibians, birds and mammals. In some birds like the suboscines, song is genetically encoded, whereas in parrots, hummingbirds and oscines, ... -
Studies On Endocrine And Behavioral Assessment Of Reproductive Status In Asian Elephants (Elephas Maximus)
(2013-01-16)The Asian elephant (Elephas maximus), a charismatic ‘flagship species’, is threatened by extinction in the wild, and the development of self-sustainable captive populations is a key conservation challenge. A third of the ... -
Systematics And Biogeography Of Scolopendrids Of The Western Ghats, India
(2013-06-25)In this thesis, the biogeography of the centipede family Scolopendridae of the Western Ghats (WG)was studied. First, a novel limited sampling approach to identify putative Gondwanan origin wherein sampling of was confined ... -
Systematics and Comparative Biogeography of Vine Snakes (Genus: Ahaetulla, Family: Colubridae) and Pit vipers (Genus: Trimeresurus, Family: Viperidae) in Peninsular India
The Indian subcontinent is a considered a mega biodiverse region with representative regions belonging to three of the 35 global biodiversity hotspots, including the Western Ghats in Peninsular India and the Eastern ... -
Systematics and Diversification in the Indian Radiation of Hemidactylus Geckos
Understanding the patterns and processes generating biodiversity is fundamental to ecology and evolutionary biology, and studying diversification can give us key insights into this process. In my thesis, I investigate ...