Symposia

Please click the symposium name to view the list of presentations under them.

S1: Molecular Ecology: Advent, Advances, and Avenues (14 June, 11AM - 1PM, Dasheri)

Symposium Chair: Dr Uma Ramakrishnan, National Centre for Biological Sciences-TIFR
Symposium Co-Chair: Dr VV Robin, IISER Tirupati

Molecular tools allow ecologists to answer questions about species that have eluded them for a long time. From solving simple problems like identifying unique individuals in unmarked species, to understanding complex species distribution patterns, the advent of these tools has expanded the scope of ecological inquiry. With recent technological advances and increased accessibility to these tools, there has been rapid growth in molecular ecology research in India. Areas of research progress include understanding connectivity between populations, uncovering dietary patterns, using genetically identified individuals to study population dynamics, delineating wild pedigrees and mating patterns, and assessing potential pathogen diversity in wild populations. Applications of new techniques like Next-Generation Sequencing and metabarcoding, and the ability to utilize non-invasive or eDNA are predicted to further expand exploration in new territories.

Despite the rapid growth in the field, most research in molecular ecology is concentrated at a few hubs across the country with limited opportunities for scientific exchange. The proposed symposium on molecular ecology would provide an excellent platform for horizontal exchange of ideas and to learn from the successes and failures of scientific peers. We hope this symposium will shed light on innovative ways by which molecular tools are assisting the ecological understanding of species across systems. More so, it would allow aspiring researchers to understand the scope, limitations and potential of the application of these tools to their questions. This gathering would allow networking opportunities to discuss research, as well as envision a trajectory for exciting scientific avenues in the field that promote collaboration and shared learning. We will try to combine the symposium and associated interactions into an opinion piece that we will submit to a peer reviewed journal.

Presentations

Sl No.	Title	Presenting Author
1	Ranthambore’s Readiness for Rescue	Sampurna Roychoudhury
2	Population genetic structure of Himalayan Langurs	Sharwary M R
3	Revealing the Hidden Feast: Unveiling Spatio-Temporal Variations in Diet of Three Carnivores	Abhinav Tyagi
4	Genetic assessment of Critically Endangered hangul in the Kashmir Himalaya	Sneha Narayan
5	Pedigree reconstruction to track matings and inbreeding in a wild tiger population	B.V. Aditi Prasad
6	Genetic diversity in an ancient predatory soil arthropod group (Scolopendridae) in peninsular India	Aniruddha Marathe

S2: The ecology of multi-use rangelands (14 June, 11AM - 1PM, Haapus (LH1) )

Symposium Chair: Dr Munib Khanyari, Nature Conservation Foundation
Symposium Co-chair: Dr Mayank Kohli, National Center for Biological Sciences – TIFR

Rangelands, comprising grasslands, shrub-lands, savannas and marshes grazed by livestock and wildlife, cover c. 40% of land globally. Rangelands provide several ecosystem services like meat and milk production, carbon sequestration, and hold important biodiversity, supporting wildlife populations outside protected areas. In India, over 10 million people are directly practicing pastoralism on rangelands ranging from the high-altitude Himalayan plateaus to the Thar desert or the Deccan scrublands. Thus, rangelands present a great opportunity to manage land for positive outcomes for both humans (often marginalized pastoralists) and wildlife (such as the critically rare Great Indian Bustard). However, rangelands, particularly in India, are often undervalued and vulnerable to multiple ongoing changes including land use, climate, socio-economic conditions that could undermine their ability to provide ecosystem services. For instance, the Wasteland Atlas of India misclassifies almost the entire region of Changthang － a high-altitude rangeland in Ladakh － as wasteland notwithstanding its importance for over 10,000 Changpa herders, and unique wildlife like Snow leopards, Lynx, Wolves and Tibetan Argali. To better manage rangelands, we need careful research on multiple aspects of the ecology of rangelands including resource use, spatial mobility of humans, their livestock, and wildlife, population ecology of wildlife in rangelands and issues surrounding human-wildlife co-occurrence. This symposium proposes to bring together diverse perspectives on ecology of multi-use rangelands both from a thematic and geographic perspective with an aim to i) foster cross thematic and geographic collaborations and ii) draft a perspective piece on the key considerations for rangeland ecology in India into the future.

Presentations

Sl No.	Title	Presenting Author
1	Overview of research in rangelands across the Himalayan rangelands	Munib Khanyari
2	Can livestock grazing dampen density dependent fluctuations in wild herbivore populations?	Manvi Sharma
3	Spatial dynamics of carnivore-livestock interaction in the Kishtwar High Altitude National Park	Oyndrila Sanyal
4	Space-use and species interactions of meso-carnivores in a threatened shared savanna landscape of western India	Divyajyoti Ganguly
5	Afforesting savannas reduces bird diversity only in regions with intermediate rainfall	Prabhav Benara
6	Use or Abuse: The fate of “TROPICAL SAVANNA” in peninsular India	Sonali

S3: Chemical and Visual Ecology (14 June, 11AM - 1PM, Langra (LH2))

Symposium Chair: Dr Renee Borges, Centre for Ecological Sciences, IISc

Sensory ecology is fundamental to an understanding of how an organism perceives and interacts with its biotic and abiotic environment. Organisms employ several sensory modalities, many of which act together to influence behaviour. Chemical ecology is the deployment of chemicals for specific purposes such as defence, mating or predation, while visual ecology is the study of how the colour of an object interacts with the colour of light to influence behaviour. Vision also interacts with chemical modalities such as olfaction to govern an organism’s response. This symposium will present cases of the use of chemicals and vision in the biology of some of India’s plant and animal species.

Presentations

Sl No.	Title	Presenting Author
1	Birth to Bite: The Evolutionary Ecology of India’s Medically Most Important Snake Venoms	R R Senji Laxme
2	To eat, or not to eat: the evolution of toad toxin resistance in Indian snakes	Paulomi Dam Kanunjna
3	How galler fig wasps manipulate their host figs through plant hormones	Manasa Kulkarni
4	Flashy males and eavesdropping rivals: Strategic use of colours in Peninsular rock agama	Aravind Sridharan
5	Constancy to floral colour in the Asian giant honeybee, Apis dorsata	Sudeep R
6	Stingless bees employ multimodal cues in nest localisation	Reshma Basak

S4: River Ecology (14 June, 11AM - 1PM, Malgova)

Symposium Chair: Dr Rajeev Raghavan, Department of Fisheries Resource Management, (KUFOS)
Symposium Co-chair: Dr JA Johnson, Wildlife Institute of India

In India, rivers support a rich tapestry of life, including aquatic mammals, turtles, fishes, and invertebrates. The symposium aims to bring together researchers to exchange knowledge and discuss current research findings on the river ecology in India, with a specific focus on hydrology, aquatic mammals, turtles, fishes, and invertebrates. We invite abstract submissions for oral presentations on river hydrology, flagship taxa of the riverine ecosystems, community ecology of different taxa, ecology of invasive species and other innovative themes.

Presentations

Sl No.	Title	Presenting Author
1	Use of eDNA in managing aquatic ecosystems	Govindhasamy Umapathy
2	Patterns of stream fish assemblages in Eastern Himalaya Biodiversity Hotspot, India	Francis Anish P
3	Characterising fish communities of Eastern Himalayan streams based on functional characteristics	Sagar Adhurya
4	Assessing the importance of Protected Areas for river birds in Northeast India	Rohan K. Menzies
5	Assessing Hydrology and Riparian Health: Insights from the Water Resources of River Tamiraparani	Sneha Shahi
6	Influence of river basins on the assemblages and genetic diversity of amphibians Western Ghats India	Priti Hebbar
7	Tracing the introductory events and dispersal modes of invasive North African Sharptooth catfish	Gopi Krishnan Prabhakaran

S5: Plant phenology: synthesising phenological response to the environment in India (14 June, 2PM - 4PM, Dasheri)

Symposium Chair: Dr Geetha Ramaswami, Nature Conservation Foundation
Symposium Co-Chair: Dr Yadugiri V Tiruvaimozhi, KREA University

The study of cyclical, predictable changes occurring in the life cycles of plants and animals is called phenology. Monitoring phenology over the long-term allows one to infer environmental drivers of phenological events, vegetation response to climate change, and the effects on populations of other organisms that depend on plant phenology. Growth-season temperature, duration and intensity of precipitation, and duration of solar irradiance are some abiotic factors correlated with the vegetative and reproductive phenology of plants across latitudes and in a variety of habitats. There is an emerging need to study the evolutionary and environmental drivers of plant phenology in the context of changing climate. In India, however, efforts to quantify phenology have lagged behind other temperate and tropical regions primarily because understanding phenology necessarily needs a long-term approach. In India most phenological studies have been of short duration (3-5 years, with few decadal or longer studies) from tropical and subtropical forests of southern and north-eastern India. A majority of these studies describe the seasonal patterns of leaf flushing, flowering and fruiting, but very few assess the climatic or evolutionary variables driving these changes. There is now a need to collate and analyse information from these diverse habitats to better understand the drivers of plant phenology across study sites.

This symposium will aim to –

Bring together plant phenology researchers working in diverse ecosystems, belonging to diverse backgrounds, and age-groups, from across India with the aim of synthesising information on environmental, ecological, and evolutionary correlates of plant phenology.
Offer an opportunity to collaboratively identify common approaches that can be generalised at different regional scales.

Presentations

Sl No.	Title	Presenting Author
1	Microclimate explains elevation-dependent variations in plant phenology and functional traits	Faizan Shafee
2	Alpine species response to early natural snowmelt in Western Himalaya: A case study	Rahul Kumar
3	Tree phenology patterns and environmental correlates in a tropical forest in Arunachal Pradesh	Soumya Banerjee
4	Environmental correlates of tree reproductive phenology – insights from citizen science	Geetha Ramaswami
5	Tree phenology in relation to climate and dispersal mode in a tropical wet-evergreen forest	A.P. Madhavan
6	Response of fruiting phenology to climate in the Western Ghats	T Ganesh

S6: Addressing sub-Himalayan grassland conservation challenges (14 June, 2PM - 4PM, Haapus (LH1))

Symposium Chair: Dr Goutam Narayan
Symposium Co-Chair: Dr Bibhab Kumar Talukdar, Aaranyak

The dynamic sub-Himalayan grassland is home for unique and threatened wildlife and also provides ecosystem services to the communities. Anthropogenic activities, inadequately informed grassland management practices and encroachment by invasive alien plants species has degraded the grassland habitat resulting into reduction in size of grasslands. Impact of climate change may further amplify this degradation. Sustenance of grassland is key for survival of grassland obligate species like pygmy hog, Bengal florican and hog deer. We are proposing a symposium aims to address critical issues concerning the ecology and conservation of sub-Himalayan grassland and recent attempts of restoration, focusing six key topics that are essential for sustaining the delicate ecological balance in the region. We specifically invite presentations on the ecologies of these grasslands and of animal communities that are typical of these grasslands and their conservation implications.

Presentations

Sl No.	Title	Presenting Author
1	Conserving the Bengal Florican in Orang National Park	Karishma Sharma Chamlagain
2	Pygmy Hog population estimation through sign survey in the Orang National Park in Assam	Jonmani Kalita
3	Reviving the grasslands through management of invasive alien plants in Manas World Heritage Site	Alolika Sinha
4	Restricting Bombax ceiba encroachment by girdling in the grassland of Manas National Park, Assam	Koushik Rajbongshi
5	Sustainable management of stray rhinoceros (Rhinoceros unicronis) population in Assam	Deba Kumar Dutta
6	Aliens in the grasslands: building evidence and replenishing habitats in a rhino-abode in Assam	Bibhuti Prasad Lahkar

S7: Crowd Sourced Ecology – Synthesis and Insights (15 June, 11AM - 1PM, Dasheri)

Symposium Chair: Praveen J, Nature Conservation Foundation
Symposium Co-Chair: Vijay Barve

Rapid advancement of technology has opened doors to innovative approaches in ecological research, with crowd-sourced initiatives emerging as a powerful and scalable data collection tool. However, the semi-structured, or sometimes unstructured nature of the data contributed by the initiatives also poses new challenges in its synthesis and assimilation into formal science. These challenges vary in the scale of the expected outputs. A national-level synthesis tackles the data differently, while the needs at a local community level necessitate a different approach. Static views and dynamic views of the data may require different approaches. This symposium aims to explore the synthesis and insights gained from crowd-sourced ecology at all scales, bridging practitioners, researchers, and enthusiasts to discuss the transformative potential of such collaborative efforts in understanding our fast-disappearing biodiversity.

Topics can range from

(1) Discussing successful crowd-sourced ecology projects.

(2) Methods for tackling large-scale ecological data.

(3) Case studies of synthesizing knowledge from crowd-sourced ecology.

(4) Technological innovations, software, and tools.

(5) Data standards, interoperability of the initiatives, and their data.

(6) Accessibility of synthesized knowledge for communities.

(7) New opportunities and future directions.

Through this symposium, we aim to encourage interdisciplinary collaboration and inspire a collective commitment to harnessing the power of crowd-sourced ecology.

Presentations

Sl No.	Title	Presenting Author
1	Marine Life of Mumbai: A Citizen Led Documentation of a highly Anthropogenic Coast	Shaunak Modi
2	Pune Bird Atlas: mapping birds in the city through citizen science	Pooja Pawar
3	Over-representation of squirrel species in a novel database linked to roads and urban features	Swati Udayraj
4	Bird Collisions data in India – the crowd is missing and ways around it	Peeyush Sekhsaria
5	The Social Pawprint: Analysing social media content to tailor conservation messaging strategies	Anshita Das
6	State of India’s Birds 2023: The Making and Insights	Ashwin Vishwanathan

S8: Vegetation ecology in times of global environmental change (15 June, 11AM - 1PM, Haapus (LH1))

Symposium Chair: Dr Meghna Krishnadas, CSIR-CCMB
Symposium Co-Chair: Dr Mahesh Sankaran, National Centre for Biological Sciences-TIFR

Across Earth, ecosystems are undergoing drastic environmental changes. These global environmental changes accruing from human activities imperil species and disrupt ecological functioning. Effects of and responses to global change can depend on traits—anatomical, morphological, physiological, and chemical features of organisms—that relate to function and mediate performance in different conditions. In plant ecology, traits have a long historical legacy. By shaping the outcome of competition and regulating key ecological processes, traits offer the promise to scale from individual performance to community structure and ecosystem properties. Against this backdrop, trait-based assessments of global change have steadily risen, but studies from the Indian subcontinent have been relatively few. In this symposium, we will draw upon a growing body of work across diverse ecosystems in India, to discuss how traits shape the response of plant communities to different aspects of global environmental change.

The symposium will highlight findings from ongoing work in different eco-regions of India (e.g., Western Himalaya, Western Ghats, Eastern Ghats), compiled into six talks and 6-8 posters by faculty, postdocs, and senior PhD students from multiple institutions. We anticipate intellectually stimulating discussions on context- and region-specific insights, from which we hope will emerge a synthetic perspective on what traits have revealed about changes to plant communities. Finally, we will brainstorm on future directions to improve trait-based ecological forecasting of vegetation response to global change in India, vis-à-vis a broader global framework.

Presentations

Sl No.	Title	Presenting Author
1	Plant arrival and survival in a multiple-use landscape: succession patterns in Himalayan oak forests	Ghazala Shahabuddin
2	Insights from vegetation ecology monitoring in Kashmir Himalaya under climate change	Manzoor A Shah
3	Alpine grassland responses to warming in E. Himalaya vary with elevation and over time	Mayank Kohli
4	Barriers and opportunities for restoration beyond highly degraded tropical forests	Anand Osuri
5	Weaker negative conspecific density dependence of light loving trees in a fragmented tropical forest	Rishiddh Jhaveri
6	It’s about time! The importance of rates of water loss, an understudied dimension of plant drought tolerance	RON SUNNY
7	Coordination within and between floral traits and phenology varies with elevation	Meghna Krishnadas

S9: The ecology and conservation of marine flagship species and critical coastal habitats of India (15 June, 11AM - 1PM, Langra (LH2))

Symposium Chair: Dr Naveen Namboothri, Dakshin Foundation
Symposium Co-chair: Chandana Pusapati, Dakshin Foundation
Symposium Co-chair: Tanmay Wagh, Dakshin Foundation

Marine flagship species and critical coastal habitats, the keystones of marine biodiversity, are facing unprecedented threats emanating from human-induced climate change, localised pressures and the rising frequency and intensity of disturbance events. Despite the rich diversity of coastal systems in India, significant gaps exist in our understanding of various aspects of marine ecology. These gaps have severely undermined our ability to formulate strategies that deliver management outcomes while being cognisant of the unique relations coastal communities share with marine ecosystems. This symposium will delve into the multidimensional challenges and progress in ecological research of marine flagship species and critical coastal habitats, including but not limited to seagrass meadows, coral reefs, mangrove forests, sea turtles, marine mammals, elasmobranchs and other threatened species and habitats. The symposium aims to highlight the opportunities and recent advances in marine research, identify priority areas and key knowledge gaps across taxa and habitats, and underscore the role of community engagement in long-term ecological monitoring. We invite researchers, academics, conservationists and citizens interested in marine ecology and will strongly encourage participation from diverse backgrounds, disciplines, cultures, genders and historically marginalised groups. The symposium will feature presentations by select applicants highlighting ecological research on marine and coastal ecosystems in India, with a particular emphasis on flagship species and critical habitats. We expect this symposium to serve as a platform to share insights from coastal regions across the country, develop a network of individuals working on similar themes, discuss critical knowledge gaps and deliberate on future research priorities.

Presentations

Sl No.	Title	Presenting Author
1	Identifying the environmental cues for olive ridley mass nesting events in Odisha	Prahalad Srikanthan
2	Understanding spatio-temporal drivers of elasmobranch bycatch in the east and west coasts of India	Imran Samad
3	Abundance and seasonal variation of juvenile Widenose Guitarfish (Glaucostegus obtusus) in Goa,India	Bryan Miranda
4	Ecological and social-economic perspectives of fisheries-dolphin interactions in Sindhudurg	Ketki Jog
5	Assessing the effects of stormwater outfalls on gastropod ecology in and around Mumbai, Maharashtra.	Ameya Bhojane
6	The Role of Sediments and Algal Turfs in Shaping Herbivory on Island-Attached Fringing Coral Reefs	Chaitanya Arjunwadkar
7	Patterns of coral larval dispersal in the Lakshadweep	Nina Tabitha Simon

S10: Learning from the past to inform landscape management for conservation (15 June, 11AM - 1PM, Malgova)

Symposium Chair: Dr Meghna Agarwala, Ashoka University
Symposium Co-Chair: Dr P. Ramya Bala, National Institute of Advanced Studies
Symposium Co-Chair: Dr Charuta Kulkarni, IIT-Madras

In this UN decade of ecosystem restoration, multinational agencies and countries prioritize restoration, but often limit their conceptualization of restoration to tree plantations and increasing canopy cover. Simultaneously, conservationists prioritize safeguarding of ‘pristine’ habitats for wildlife (Cronon 1996; Brooks et al. 2006), yet our conceptualization of ‘pristine’ nature may not be the most accurate. Many ‘natural’ habitats today have a long history of human habitation and have been co-created by human actions (Ellis et al. 2021). Yet, these global studies mask more specific regional variations (Riedel et al. 2021; RamyaBala et al. 2022) that may be useful for understanding processes and identifying baselines for conservation and restoration. Particularly, conservationists in India have not used past precedents to inform conservation priorities (such as thresholds of potential concern in Kruger National Park). Given the debates in India, palaeo-ecological studies may be useful to understand: long-standing biomes in India, the role of fires in creating wilderness landscapes, how intensities of human use lead to different outcomes, the dependence of wild species on ‘anthromes’, and the role of climate change in forming ‘natural’ landscapes (Ratnam et al. 2016; Thekaekara et al. 2017; Riedel et al. 2021). In this symposium, we hope to bring together studies from palaeo-ecology, history and long-term ecological work to shed light on long-term trajectories of ‘natural’ landscapes in India. Knowing that ecosystems are continuously evolving, landscape processes for the mid-Holocene to current day are understood to be most relevant for conservation goals. Given the long-term transformation of ecosystems by humans through fire and other activities, and the colonial legacy of changing the forest composition (Roy and Fleischman 2022), we expect the symposium discussions to shed light on how to prioritise what landscapes and landscape processes need to be conserved.

Presentations

Sl No.	Title	Presenting Author
1	Lessons learnt from paleoecology of the upper Nilgiris for ecological restoration	R. Sukumar
2	Vegetation response to climate change since the LGM from the CMZ of India	Mohammad Firoze Quamar
3	Echoes of Change: Diatoms as Time Machines in the Western Ghats	Balasubramanian Karthick
4	Biotic and abiotic analogue of endangered Red Panda dung from India: palaeodietary and palaeoecological implications	Swati Tripathi
5	Pollen-inferred Baselines for Conservation Strategies using contrasting Landscapes in the Past	K. Anupama

S11: Navigating the connectivity–conflict interface (15 June, 2PM - 4PM, Dasheri)

Symposium Chair: Dr Divya Vasudev, Conservation Initiatives

Conservation today occurs in large complex systems where multiple ecological processes and conservation challenges simultaneously play out. For many species, two factors determine how they persist in fragmented landscapes: (1) how well they are able to navigate unfamiliar and heterogeneous landscapes to access resources, reflecting connectivity; and (2) how they interact and respond to people and human spaces, reflecting human–animal interactions. But these two factors do not act in isolation. Vasudev et al (2023, PNAS) depict and map the connectivity–conflict interface, a zone where dispersing animals increase chances of conflict, while human–animal interactions in turn, shape connectivity. They took the example of the Asian elephant in the Mysore Elephant Reserve, southwestern India. We extend this work to explore the connectivity–conflict interface under different contexts, and discuss how it impacts animal persistence, human–animal interactions, and our conservation efforts.

Our symposium begins with an introduction to the connectivity–conflict interface and a description of the SAMC model for simultaneous mapping of connectivity and conflict. We then discuss how the connectivity–conflict interface plays out for different species and geographies across India; and under different scenarios of population status (e.g., with recovering populations). Taken together, this will allow for comparisons across contrasting scenarios of species traits, landscape contexts (e.g., across degree of fragmentation), and population densities. We conclude with a discussion on the need for nuanced policy, collaboration and multi-faceted conservation action. We envision a collaborative output—a white paper or manuscript—to emerge from this symposium that delves deep into the connectivity–conflict interface in various contexts in India, and suggests a path forward towards a more holistic understanding of how animals navigate and persist in shared landscapes, with recommendations for conservation policy and action.

Presentations

Sl No.	Title	Presenting Author
1	Mapping the connectivity–conflict interface	Varun R. Goswami
2	Does structural connectivity traslate to functional connectivity for tigers in Northeast India?	Vinay Sagar
3	Navigating Human Spaces: Elephant movement in forest-production landscapes	Aritra Kshettry
4	Understanding ecological and quantitative drivers of human elephant conflict in Tamil Nadu	Navaneethan Balasubramanian
5	Connectivity and conflict in central India: tigers and other endangered species	Uma Ramakrishnan
6	Navigating the Nexus of Connectivity and Conflict: A Framework for Conservation in Shared Landscapes	Imran Siddiqui
7	A multi-scale assessment of anthropogenic factors impacting dhole populations in the Western Ghats	Mayank Shukla
8	Paving a way for tiger population recovery in Northeast India and beyond	Divya Vasudev

S12: Uncovering the macroecology and macroevolution of Indian biota: moving from biodiversity patterns to processes (15 June, 2PM - 4PM, Haapus (LH1))

Symposium Chair: Dr Vivek Philip Cyriac, Indian Institute of Science
Symposium Co-Chair: Dr Jahnavi Joshi, CSIR-CCMB

Macroevolution and macroecology contribute to understanding the origins and maintenance of biological diversity over large spatiotemporal scales. Macroevolution deals with patterns and processes of evolutionary change over millions of years, and macroecology examines species distribution across different environments. Within tropical Asia, the Indian subcontinent is exceptionally biodiverse, harbours four of the 36 globally recognised biodiversity hotspots, and has a complex geological history. This rich biodiversity results from multiple ecological, evolutionary and geo-climatic processes operating at vastly different spatial and temporal scales. However, macroecological and macroevolutionary research is still nascent in India, and many regional biodiversity patterns and underlying mechanisms still need to be better understood.

Over the years, increasing efforts have been made to document species distributions and their evolutionary relationships across taxa and landscapes. The availability of these large-scale datasets allows us to poke at the ‘big questions’ about the mechanisms that generate biodiversity patterns. In this symposium, we hope to explore a wide range of questions, such as why India’s biodiversity is concentrated in the mountains, such as the Western Ghats and the Himalayas, why some taxa have more species than others, or how diversification rates vary across geographies. We also aim to highlight and discuss the significant gaps in our knowledge regarding datasets and questions across terrestrial and marine biome and way ahead. The symposium will bring together early career and senior researchers who have contributed to our understanding of the diverse Indian biodiversity and hope to spark interest in macroecology and macroevolution among young researchers.

Presentations

Sl No.	Title	Presenting Author
1	Idiosyncrasies in the pace, patterns and predictors of biotic diversification in peninsular India	Pragyadeep Roy
2	The drivers of contrasting diversity and distribution patterns between two Indian geckos	Madhura Agashe
3	Patterns and determinants of plant species richness along elevational gradient in Western Himalayas	Abhishek Kumar
4	Biogeography of a widespread fairy flycatcher in the Indomalayan realm inferred using phylogenomics.	Faizee Ali Khan
5	The anuran faux pas: global patterns in the prevalence of anuran misdirected amplexus	Shubham Soni
6	Tracing the tales of venomous cocktails: a case study of centipede venoms	Aditi

S13: The Ecological Underpinnings of Human – Wildlife Interactions (16 June, 9AM - 11AM, Dasheri)

Symposium Chair: Dr Pranav Chanchani, WWF
Symposium Co-Chair: Dr Asmita Sengupta, Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE)
Symposium Co-Chair: Dr Sunita Pradhan, Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE)
Symposium Co-Chair: Dr Sarala Khaling, Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE)

The symposium explores the ecological consequences of interactions between humans and wildlife in multi-use landscapes in India. Focusing on diverse taxa across ecoregions, the symposium invites papers that probe one or more of the following intersecting themes: (a) what behavioural strategies do various species adopt to negotiate, navigate and share space with people? (b) What are the behavioural, physiological, life-history and fitness outcomes in areas where wildlife extensively share space with people? (c) How are these biological outcomes determined, influenced or modified in response to human behaviours or the extent of human presence? By exploring these themes, the symposium will cast light on the mechanisms that have facilitated the occurrence and persistence of wildlife in multi-use landscapes. In addition, we will be drawing attention to the other effects of this co-occurrence including adverse physiological and behavioural impacts and exacerbated extinction risks — against the backdrop of ever-increasing anthropogenic impacts on wildlife and their habitats. Ultimately, this symposium also aspires to inform and nuance our understanding of the ecological basis of complex and consequential outcomes of human-wildlife interactions, including conflict and coexistence.

Presentations

Sl No.	Title	Presenting Author
1	Are human-altered landscapes reshaping carnivore niche spaces in the cold desert of Spiti Valley?	Priyanka Justa
2	Moving in the mosaic: daily movement decisions of mesocarnivores in an agro-ecosystem	Harish Prakash
3	Towards a mechanistic understanding of tiger occurrence and persistence in working landscapes	Pranav Chanchani
4	Predator in Proximity: Behavioural adaptations to human pressures and impacts on conflict dynamics	Manu Mohan
5	Insights into human-wildlife coexistence through temporal activity overlaps in the Eastern Ghats	Vikram Aditya
6	Predator, prey and pastoralists: Snow leopard mediated apparent competition in Trans-Himalaya	Deepti Bajaj
7	Human-elephant conflict through more-than-human political ecology framework in North Bengal	Akashdeep Roy

S14: The impact of anthropogenic factors on animal social behaviour (16 June, 9AM - 11AM, Haapus (LH1))

Symposium Chair: Dr Nandini Rajamani, IISER Tirupati
Symposium Co-chair: Dr Kavita Isvaran, Centre for Ecological Sciences, IISc

Animal populations today invariably experience one or more of a set of diverse anthropogenic factors to different degrees. There is hardly any geographic area and habitat that does not experience human-related factors (examples include linear intrusions and invasive species in forests; landscapes consisting of a mosaic of natural and modified habitat patches such as plantations and forest patches or crop fields, grazing lands and grasslands; fishing and sound pollution in aquatic habitats; urbanisation etc). While we know that anthropogenic change affects animal behaviour, little attention has been paid to its impacts on social behaviour. Social behaviour broadly encompasses interactions between individuals of the same species, including grouping, sociality, dominance, competition and cooperation for resources, mating systems, etc. In this symposium, we focus on how such human-related factors in our wild landscapes affect social behaviour, a key set of traits that affects animal ecology and trait evolution. In turn, how do these behaviours affect the way animals navigate such changes in the landscape?

Behavioural traits can be more flexible/plastic than other traits like morphology. Behavioural traits can also be co-opted from the context in which this behaviour evolved to a more recent selection pressure (e.g., response to natural predators extended to human-related threat). Such plasticity and co-option can help with coping with rapid environmental change (including human-related change). However, such plasticity can also constrain evolution. It is important to understand how flexibility in social responses and structures promotes resilience, and how diverse taxa cope both at individual and population levels. This symposium invites studies that examine the social behaviour of any taxa in the context of anthropogenic/environmental change.

Presentations

Sl No.	Title	Presenting Author
1	Mitigating Birdstrikes: Co-opting a bird-feeding ritual to protect aviation and wildlife in Delhi	Nishant Kumar
2	Food acquisition patterns and response to novelty in Funambulus palmarum vary with urbanisation	Rakesh Kumar Muni
3	Social behaviour and movement of Asian elephants in a human-dominated landscape	Parvathi Krishna Prasad
4	Wells as roosts for solitary living Rhinolophus beddomei – opportunities and obstacles	Joanna Rani E
5	Anthropogenic factors appear to alter the influence of resources and risk on antelope social decisions	Kavita Isvaran
6	Congenial Cities: Affective, Negotiated Macaque–Human Relationships in Urban India	Anindya Sinha

S15: Seed dispersal in the Anthropocene (16 June, 9AM - 11AM, Malgova)

Symposium Chair: Dr Rohit Naniwadekar, Nature Conservation Foundation
Symposium Co-Chair: Dr H. S. Sushma, Foundation for Ecological Research Advocacy and Learning (FERAL)

Seed dispersal plays a crucial role in ecosystem dynamics by influencing plant regeneration patterns, maintaining plant genetic diversity and enabling plants to respond to global change drivers. However, our understanding of the ecological and evolutionary drivers in influencing the plant-seed disperser community assembly and the inter- and intra-specific variations in the roles of animals in seed dispersal and its consequences on plant persistence remains incomplete. Our relatively poor understanding of processes and the associated complexity of outcomes limit our ability to make generalisable predictions of the effects of global change drivers on plant communities and inform management decisions. Moreover, while seed dispersal research has received some attention in the Americas and Europe, the field is still relatively understudied in South Asia. This symposium seeks to address this gap by presenting findings across different themes in frugivory and seed dispersal from various regions in the country. Our goal is to explore diverse topics, including the community assembly of plant-seed disperser communities, the role of lesser-known vertebrates in seed dispersal, intra- and inter-specific variations in seed dispersal patterns, seed dispersal influence on plant community organisation and the consequences of human actions on seed dispersal.

We aim to feature the work of a diverse array of researchers from varying backgrounds, including young and senior professionals. This will provide a platform for young researchers to seek feedback and gain insights by engaging with senior professionals. By bringing together frugivory and seed dispersal biologists, this symposium also aims to facilitate interactions and collaborations. Importantly, through this symposium, we also aspire to spark interest among young researchers in frugivory and seed dispersal.

Presentations

Sl No.	Title	Presenting Author
1	Evaluating seed dispersal effectiveness of different mammals in North-east India	Bibidishananda Basu
2	Frugivory and seed dispersal in traditional shade coffee plantations, Central Western Ghats, India.	Vedika Dutta
3	Role of seed dispersal limitation in maintaining forest types within an oceanic island	Arpitha Jayanth
4	Effects of ecological restoration on tree seed dispersal in fragmented forests of the Western Ghats	Jyotsna Nag
5	Evaluating seed dispersal potential by stomatochoric dispersers – A review	H.S. Sushma

S16: Acoustics in Wildlife Biology and Ecology (16 June, 9AM - 11AM, Langra (LH2))

Symposium Chair: Dr Anand Krishnan, JNCASR
Symposium Co-chair: Dr Divya Panicker

The use of bioacoustics in remote, passive ecological monitoring is burgeoning and interdisciplinary, and has the potential to transform our understanding of fundamental ecological processes. Additionally, acoustic methods pose unique advantages in the study of poorly-known, hard-to-observe wildlife, particularly nocturnal or marine animals. As an interdisciplinary tool with profound implications in the study of diverse animals, much study in bioacoustics has focused on the use of affordable recorders to monitor wildlife, and on efficient tools to handle the immense amounts of data. This symposium aims to illustrate the utility, promise and pitfalls of bioacoustics monitoring across a range of taxa and environments, both marine and terrestrial. Our focus is not on the technique itself, but rather on the novel insights to be gained into the ecology of taxa that are challenging to study using other survey methods. The talks we hope to have will cover a range of ecological questions, from behaviour to community ecology, and will demonstrate both how researchers use this data, and how, for certain taxa, the use of acoustics can provide new information into ecology and natural history. Threading through all of this will be the use of this data to inform conservation, with an emphasis on how much new research is still needed. By bringing together a diverse group of researchers, we aim to start a conversation and initiate a collaborative exchange of ideas across this conference that will help lay out future directions for the field as a whole.

Presentations

Sl No.	Presentation Title	Presenter Name	Presenter Email	Presenter Institution
1	A dive into the underwater soundscapes in Lakshadweep	Divya Panicker	divya145@gmail.com
2	Passive Acoustic Monitoring of Arabian Sea humpback whales off Netrani Island, Karnataka	Maia L D’Souza	maialisa99@gmail.com	IISER-Mohali
3	Assessing population-level birdsong dialects in the cloud montane Shola forests	Chiti Arvind	chitiarvind@students.iisertirupati.ac.in	IISER-Tirupati
4	Acoustic Monitoring of Birds Across Land-use Patterns in Semi-arid Ecosystems	Antara Kulkarni	antara.kulkarni13@gmail.com	NCBS
5	A holistic approach to understanding acoustic divergence in paleotropical katydids from India	Aarini Ghosh	aarini.ghosh_phd18@ashoka.edu.in	Ashoka University
6	Insect ecoacoustics: The elephant in the room?	Rohini Balakrishnan	gryllus1@gmail.com	IISc

S17: ‘Little things that run the world’: insects in a changing world (16 June, 11:30AM - 1:30PM, Langra (LH2))

Symposium Chair: Dr Pritha Dey, Natural History Museum, Finland
Symposium Co-chair: Gauri Gharpure, National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS-TIFR)

Human lives are inextricably connected with insects, in more ways than we currently acknowledge. Insects occupy crucial nodes in ecosystem networks, yet get eclipsed by charismatic species in the limelight of wildlife studies. Understanding the role of insects as providers of numerous ecosystem services and indicators of ecosystem health will be pertinent in the Anthropocene era. If we observe and learn from the insect’s ways in this world, we might find the inspiration to constructively address the challenges of the accelerated biodiversity loss that the world is facing now.

While recent efforts have highlighted the importance of insects to the general audience through their ecosystem functions, such as pollination, pest control, and nutrient recycling, insect research has been approached from an ‘agriculturally important’ gaze or has been focussed on model organisms (Drosophila, honey bees, etc.). It is now imperative to overcome taxonomic constraints in insect research and emphasize their broader importance by exploring the next directions that insect research could and should take.

The proposed symposium aims to showcase research on non-model insects and ecosystem services provided by insects. With participants from diverse backgrounds and career stages, the symposium intends to ensure fair representation, fostering informed collaborations to identify key research areas, engagements, and activities for the conservation of insects.

Presentations

Sl No.	Title	Presenting Author
1	Giant honey bees in the city	Rajath Siddaganga
2	Contrasting Plant-Pollinator Networks in Native Forests versus Invasive-Dominated Habitats	Anisha Mandal
3	Butterfly responses to an edge-to-interior gradient in the rainforest fragments of the Western Ghats	Niranjana C
4	Assessing Insect Herbivory Dynamics on Coffee Removal in a Rainforest Restoration Experiment.	Lakshmi Niranjana
5	Morphological and Acoustic characterisation of the tymbal organ in Paleotropical Arctiinae moths.	Anza Simon
6	Radiotelemetry of a canopy katydid reveals why bat predation is female-biased	Kasturi Saha

S18: Collaborations in Nature: a dive into the strange phenomenon of mixed-species animal groups (16 June, 11:30AM - 1:30PM, Malgova)

Symposium Chair: Bharat Ahuja, IISc
Symposium Co-chair: Dr Priti Bangal, Nature Conservation Foundation

Mixed species animal groups (MSGs) are defined as moving groups of animals that are formed and maintained by interactions between participating species. Such groups are diverse with respect to taxa, habitats they occur in and the duration for which they persist. MSGs include migratory associations that may last several months such as groups formed between various ungulate species in the grasslands of Africa, feeding associations formed between passerine birds in evergreen forests that can be measured by the minute, or ephemeral associations between reef-fish. The widespread prevalence of such groups raises interesting questions about the costs incurred and benefits derived for different participating species. By participating in such groups species derive a range of foraging or antipredator related benefits while minimizing the costs of intraspecific competition typically associated with single-species groups. The Indian subcontinent remains heavily understudied in the MSG context despite growing evidence that such groups have the potential to impact local species diversity, and ecosystem trophodynamics. We are only beginning to understand the important role these groups play in influencing community processes and their underlying mechanisms – such as habitat modification or altering the landscape of fear in a given ecosystem. This symposium aims to highlight how monitoring such groups and the functional roles they play in their ecosystems can leverage conservation of habitats and species. Our symposium will serve as a gregarious platform bringing together researchers, conservationists and students to share research on the ecology and behaviour of such mixed-species associations ranging from terrestrial to marine ecosystems and across a range of vertebrate taxa.

Presentations

Sl No.	Title	Presenting Author
1	Bamboozling Interactions: Interspecific associations within bamboo bird flocks in Eastern Himalaya	Sidharth Srinivasan
2	Butterflies of a colour assemble together	Ravi Jambhekar
3	Acoustic traits and community ecology of mixed-species bird flocks	Abhijith A V
4	Following fish: shoaling and attendant groups of reef fish in the Lakshadweep Islands	Kartik Shanker
5	Higher or Lower together – Effect of species richness & composition on foraging niches in bird MSFs	Zakhiya PC
6	Mixed species schooling: when and how do fish school with different species?	Viraj R Torsekar

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