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July 2026: Sonali gives a talk at the Ecological society of America

Sonali gave the talk "The difference in plant community between grazed and ungrazed sites was greater in the soil seed bank than standing vegetation in a semi-arid grassland" at the annual meeting of the Ecological Society of America in Salt lake city, Utah.

Her talk was in the Arid And Semi-Arid Systems section.

July 2026: A paper from Narashiman's MSc thesis is out!

Nagendra Rao, N.* & van Nouhuys, S. 2026. More invasive than non-invasive Asteraceae plants can reproduce uniparentally. Biological Invasions. 28:151

July 2026: Sonali and Narashiman gives a talk at ATBC

Sonali and Narashiman both gave talks at Association of Tropical Biology and conservation conference in Xishuangbanna, China

Sonali's talk: Composition of seeds in the soil seed bank: more dormant invasive species Narashiman's talk: More invasive than non-invasive Asteracee plants can reproduce uniparentally Both were in the "Ecology and Evolution of Invasive plants" session

July 2026: Anaswar gives a talk at the IWEC conference

Anaswar gave the talk “Rutaceae-Lepidoptera-parasitoid Food webs along a gradient of agricultural management systems” in the symposium "Insects in a changing world" at the Indian Wildlife Ecology Conference (IWEC)

July 2026: Gauravya presents a poster at IWEC

Gauravya presents a poster gave the talk “Ants don’t Grow on Trees: Exploring the Interaction of Ants and Trees in a Semi-arid Landscape” at the Indian Wildlife Ecology Conference (IWEC)

June 2026: Shreya gives a talk at the IUBC conference here in Bangalore

Shreya's talk, at the International Union of Biological Sciences in the symposium "Chemical Ecology in the Anthropocene" was How does ecological lifestyle affect parasitoid venom? https://www.iubsga2026.org/index.html

June 2026: Sonali gives a talk at the IUBC conference here in Bangalore

Sonali's talk, at the International Union of Biological Sciences conference, in the symposium "Changing Pastoral socio-ecologies of the 21st century" was titled Precipitation increases the similarity in plant species composition between grazed and ungrazed sites in semi-arid grassland https://www.iubsga2026.org/index.html

June 2026: Saskya is honored to get to give the 12th annual Coleman lecture at GKVK

This annual seminar is hosted by the Dept of Agricultural Entomology and Dept. of Plant Pathology at GKVK, which is the Karnataka agricultural university in Bangalore.

May 2026: Thejus finished his MSc project on the molecular phylogeny =of egg parasitoids

Thejus finished his MSc project "Taxonomic identification of Parasitoid wasps of Lepidoptera on Rutaceae in Southern India Using Molecular approaches"

May 2026: CES coffee table book available on Amazon in India

CES faculty wrote a Coffee table book hat was published in nDecember 2025, and is now available at the IISc bookstore and on Amazon in India. It is a collection of essays on ecology, evolution and conservation with an emphasis on research at CES, and beautiful drawn illustrations and photos.

May 2026: A paper on host and parasitoid microbiome out from Camila’s PhD work

Beraldo, C. S.*, Castillo, D. F., van Nouhuys, S, Duplouy, A. 2026 Temperature at parental generation affects bacterial communities associated with offspring for both host and parasitoid FEMS Microbiology Ecology 102 (6):fiag046 DOI: 10.1093/femsec/fiag046

May 2026: Gauravya Mohan presented his IISc Life Sciences MSc thesis on ant-tree associations

Gauravya Mohan presented his IISc Life Sciences MSc thesis titled Exploring the Interaction of Ants with their Resident Trees in an Indian Savannah

May 2026: Aniket Ray presented his IISc MSc thesis modeling insect population dynamics

Aniket Ray presented his IISc MSc thesis titled Dynamic economic threshold modelling of stage-structured pest–natural enemy dynamics.

April 2026: Pheba finished her MSc project food webs associated with Rutaceae

Pheba finished her MSc project “Comparative assessment of Plant Lepidoptera Parasitoid communities on Rutaceae family across varying land management intensities.” St. Josephs University, MSc project at IISc (Dec. 2025- April 2026) Co-advised by Anaswar and Saskya

April 2026: Lab Pottery Town Visit

We took a lab trip to a neighborhood here in Bangalore called Pottery Town where we made some beautiful pottery.

Sept. 2025: An article in the IISc magazine Kernel about The effects of climate change on insect life cycles

An article in the IISc magazine Kernel by Anjaney Pandey Wings on Fire featuring text from interviews with Rohini Balakrishnan, Renee Borges and Saskya.

August 2025: Three new PhD scholars joined the lab

Welcome Ananya Kalathera, Katta Abhishek Goud, and Aathira Pratap! See the People page to get to know them.

August 2025: Saskya at the 38th International Ethological Congress in Kolkata

Saskya presented research by postdoc Prabitha Mohan and MSc project student Rajnish Shree Raj in a symposium on Behavioral ecology of mutualism and parasitism at the 38th International Ethological Congress in Kolkata.

August 2025: The BUGNET methodes paper is out!

Our semi- arid grassland/shrubland research site is part of an international study of grassland plant communities (BUGNET - www.bug-net.org). The first BUGNET paper has been published, which outlines the methods and primary hypotheses being tested. Kempel, A. many authors including van Nouhuys, S, and Sonali, VR.* 2025 The Bug-Network (BugNet): a global experimental network testing the effects of invertebrate herbivores and fungal pathogens on plant communities and ecosystem function in open ecosystems. Ecology and Evolution. DOI: 10.1002/ece3.72111

June 2025: Camila Souza Beraldo defending her PhD thesis at University of Helsinki on community level pattern of insect microbiota

Camila Souza Beraldo, did a wonderful job defending her PhD thesis “Communities ecological interactions and environmental drivers of microbiota in insect communities. ” Camila was a scholar at University of Helsinki, co-supervised by Anne Duplouy and Saskya

June 2025: PoCoEco MSc students offer a botany course at CES

PoCoEco MSc students Narashiman and Gauravya team up to offer the department a much needed botany course!

May 2025: Shri Avanthika finished her MSc project on moth species that eat Rutaceae

Shri Avanthika finished her MSc project “Moth communities associated with wild and cultivated Rutacea” Central University of Kerala MSc, project at IISc co-advised by Anaswar P and Saskya.

May 2025: Narashiman submitted his MSc thesis

Narashiman submitted his MSc thesis titled “Reproductive strategies in Asteraceae in the context of invasion ecology and evolution.” Narashiman is a MSc Life sciences student here at IISc

April 2025: Rajnish submitted his MSc thesis project on parasitoid foraging behavior in the face of competition

Rajnish submitted his MSc thesis! titled ” Foraging behavior of Trichogramma chilonis on Corcyra cephalonica egg under competitive and Non-competitive conditions.” Rajnish is an IISER Tirupati student who did his MSc project here at IISc under the supervision of Postdoc Prabitha Mohan.

March. 2025: See Shreya’s article in the IISc campus magazine about the variety of side gigs going on here

See Shreya’s great article in the IISc campus magazine, Connect, to learn about the fascinatingly varied things students are doing here on the IISc campus

Feb. 2025: Sonali won first prize in the student talk competition at the Indian Regional Association for Landscape Ecology, where she

Sonali gave a presentation “Looking through the seed: Understanding the restoration in arid landscape” at the 2025 conference of the Indian Regional Association for Landscape Ecology, where she won first prize in the student competition.

Jan. 2025: Saskya gave a keynote talk at Abeda Inamdar Senior College of Arts, Science and Commerce, Azam Campus, Camp, Pune

Saskya gave a keynote talk “Using ecological theory for biological control of insect pests” in the Biosciences Harmony with Nature conference at Abeda Inamdar Senior College of Arts, Science and Commerce, Azam Campus, Camp, Pune.

Jan. 2025: Saskya gave at the conference "Pollinators for Food Security" at Central University of Kerala

Saskya gave a keynote talk “Ecological and evolutionary interactions of Wolbachia and their hosts” at the conference Pollinators for Food Security at Central University of Kerala.

Dec. 2024: A short article about our work on identifying the Asian citrus Psyllid

A short article about our work on identifying the Asian citrus Psyllid from sticky traps using AI came out in Israeli Agri. The Psyllid is endemic in India and newly invasive to Israel.

Nov. 2024: Anaswar impressed the CES department with his PhD thesis plan presentation

Anaswar impressed the CES department with his PhD thesis plan and progress, titled “Patterns and Processes in Plant-Lepidoptera-Parasitoid Food webs associated with Wild and Cultivated Rutaceae.”

Oct. 2024: Shreya presented her exciting PhD thesis plan and progress

Shreya presented her exciting PhD thesis plan and progress, titled “Ecological Drivers of Parasitoid Venom Variation,” to the CES department.

Oct. 2024: Saskya at the 5th conference of Indian Society of Evolutionary Biologists at University of Lucknow

Saskya gave an invited lecture “The pattern of checkerspot butterfly-parasitoid-Wolbachia diversity: coevolution or co-habitation?” at the 5th conference of Indian Society of Evolutionary Biologists at University of Lucknow

Oct. 2024: Saskya was a panelist in a webinar organized by the Indian Institute for Human Settlement

Saskya was a panelist in a webinar titled “Policy-push towards feasibility of Nature based Solutions for cities” held by IIHS, the Indian Institute for Human Settlement

Sept. 2024: Suvarna Khadakkar’s letter in Science about biodiversity threats in the Andaman and Nicobar islands.

See Suvarna Khadakkar’s latest letter in Science about the threats to biodiversity of India’s development plans in the Andaman and Nicobar islands.

Sept. 2024: Our new paper on patterns of Wolbachia infection among co-ocuring and related parasitoid species

Our new paper is out in BMC Microbiology which finds Wolbachia from closely related co-ocuring Cotesia are not themselves closely related. Valerio, F., C. Martel, C. Stefanescu, S. van Nouhuys, M. Kankare and A. Duplouy (2024). “Wolbachia strain diversity in a complex group of sympatric cryptic parasitoid wasp species.” BMC Microbiology, 24(1), paper 319

June 2024. Saskya at the International Conference on Biological Control in Costa Rica

Saskya gave a presentation at the International Conference on Biological Control in Costa Rica, titled ” Dynamic economic thresholds for insecticide application: Importance of pest and natural enemy migration.” It was part of a symposium on using ecological theory for biological control.

June 2024. Suvarna’s article Corruption in faculty recruitment in India

Have a look at Suvarna’s article Corruption in permanent faculty recruitment in Indian state universities In the online publication The Print. Linked here

June 2024. Shreya’s article about nightlife at IISc

Shreya’s article about nightlife at IISc came out in this months issue of the campus magazine Connect. See page 31 here

June 2024: Some of us went to the Indian wildlife conference

Some of us went to the Indian wildlife conference where Suvarna gave a talk about the effects of size and degradation on the dung beetle communities in sacred groves, and Sonali gave a talk on the her study of effects of long term grazing exclusion on a grassland plant community.

May 2024: Saskya gave a talk on biological control at Atria University

Saskya gives a talk in the Atria University symposium on species interaction, genetic legacy, & biogeography, Bangalore, India. “Using ecological theory for biological control of insect pests.”

April 2024: Many lab presentations at CATs this year!

presented three talks and a poster at CATs the annual Department Symposium: Patterns of biodiversity along a habitat and disturbance gradient of Sacred groves in Western Ghats, India, by Suvarna. How grazers shape arid grassland plant community, by Sonali. Effect of intraspecific competition in resource utilisation of parasitoids, by Prabitha. Butterfly – Parasitoid Communities associated with Rutaceae family, by Tapasya, Anaswar and Saskya

March 2024: See Camila’s Essay in Nature on research productivity

Camila’s Essay titled My productivity waxes and wanes — and I’m learning to account for it was published in the Career column in Nature

Dec. 2023: A profile of our research in the IISc Sciences newsletter

A profile of our research in the IISc Sciences newsletter titled Hunting strategies of parasitoid wasps

Nov 2023: A big congratulations to Sonali for receiving one of the HUL fellowship

A big congratulations to Sonali for receiving one of the five HUL fellowships for Women in Stem! See her in the Times of India Article here.

Nov. 2023: Our book chapter on parasitoid population dynamics published

Our book chapter on parasitoid population dynamics that has been years in the making is finally published! Jervis, M.A. Kidd, N.A.C., Mills, N.J., van Nouhuys, S., Singh, A., Yazdani, M. * (2023) Population Dynamics. In: Hardy ICW & Wajnberg E (Eds) Jervis’s Insects as natural enemies: practical perspectives. Springer, Dordrecht.

Nov. 2023: Saskya and colleague Sumanta Bagchi put together a special issue in Ecological applications on Applied Ecology in India.

Saskya and colleague Sumanta Bagchi and are excited to be starting to put together a special issue in the journal Ecological Applications on Applied Ecology in India. If you have some interesting work that might fit in, please have a look at the call for papers: https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/hub/journal/19395582/call-for-papers/si-2023-000824

Oct. 2023: Watch a 2 minute video about the current collaborative project on the ways butterfly behavior changes with weather.

Watch a 2 minute video about the current collaborative project on the ways butterfly behavior changes with weather. This project is in collaboration with researchers from the Indian Institute for Human Settlements (iihs.co.in) (@RaviJambhekar, @JagdishKrishna8), funded by the Bengaluru Sustainability forum

June 2023: Saskya participates in the workshop

June 2023: Saskya participates in the workshop on Theory for Biological Control at the Israeli Institute for Advanced Studies at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

June 2023: We all attended the Animal Behavior Symposium

June 2023: We all attended the Animal Behavior Symposium here in CES, organized by Rohini Balakrishnan‘s lab (sites.google.com/view/rohinibalakrishnanlab) in honor of 25 years of research on eco-acoustics. Pranoy presented a talk on animal self-medication.

May 2023: Saskya joins the Journal of Animal Ecology as an Associate editor.

April 2023: Congratulations to Nithin Shakti for defended his bachelor's thesis

April 2023: Congratulations to Nithin Shakti for defended his bachelors thesis titled Modelling perspectives for partial resource use by parasitoid wasps

Feb. 2023: Saskya was part of the a four day zoom workshop, Inclusive Ecology, run by the Centre for Ecological Sciences

Feb. 2023: Saskya was part of the a four day zoom workshop, Inclusive Ecology, run by the Centre for Ecological Sciences. The workshop introduced students from under-represented groups to broad concepts and approaches in the fields of Ecology, Evolution, Behaviour, Conservation, and Quantitative Thinking, and to the practicalities of graduate school.

Feb. 2023: Saskya received a three-year SERB CORE research grant

Feb. 2023: Saskya received a three-year SERB CORE research grant for the project Community structure and dynamics of parasitoid wasps and their butterfly hosts in a complex ecological system

Feb. 2023: See our new Forum article in Economic Entomology

Feb. 2023: See our new Forum article in Economic Entomology: Dynamic economic thresholds for agricultural pests and the importance of migration between field and off-field locations by Keasar, T., Wajnberg, E. Heimpel, G., Hardy, Ian C.W., Shaltiel, L., Gottlieb, D., van Nouhuys, S.

January 2023: We are excited to welcome two new NPDF postdocs to the lab & new Ph.D students

January 2023: We are excited to welcome two new NPDF postdocs to the lab. Prabitha Mohan is investigating the role of competition in diet specialization by parasitoids. Suvarna Khadakkar is studying the effects of habitat degradation on dung beetles in sacred groves. We are also excited to welcome two new PhD students, Shreya Gangwal and Anaswar P. See the People page for all of their bios.

December 2022: Our small grant proposal Climate change and Bengaluru

December 2022: Our small grant proposal Climate change and Bengaluru: Applying a biodiversity lens for a sustainable city from the Bengaluru Sustainability Forum with Ravi Jambhekar and Jagdish Krishnaswamy from IHSS (iihs.co.in) was funded! Get ready to see how climate change is changing the behavior of Urban birds and butterflies.

August 2022: New PhD student Sonali has joined the lab

August 2022: New PhD student Sonali has joined the lab! See people page

July 2022: Aditya Nayak joined us as a summer undegraduate intern from IISER Mohali

July 2022: Aditya Nayak joined us as a summer undegraduate intern from IISER Mohali. He did a literature review of change in genome size associated with plant domestication. He also worked on finding local parasitoids of Lepidoptera on Citrus.

June 30th 2022: The Working group on theoretical approaches

June 30th 2022: The Working group on theoretical approaches to biological control and conservation is over. Here is a news article about what we were doing.

July 2026 Paper on Mating systems of invasive and non-invasive Asteraceae

Narashiman's paper More invasive than non-invasive Asteraceae plants can reproduce uniparentally came out in the journal Biological Invasions. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10530-026-03834-2

May 3rd 2022: A photo of Saskya and Pranoy featured on the running head of the IISc webpage

May 3rd 2022: A photo of Saskya and Pranoy featured on the running head of the IISc webpage, linking to Saskya as a “woman scientist of IISc” answering some queries about career path and science.

February 2022: The five-month working group on theoretical approaches to biological control and conservation

February 2022: The five month working group on theoretical approaches to biological control and conservation at the Israeli Institute of Advanced studies has started. Saskya is spending three weeks there in February, and then going back again in the summer. In between she is participating via Zoom.

February 2022: Our new paper, with Ann Hajek and others, on the association of a nematode and its woodwasp host

February 2022: Our new paper, with Ann Hajek and others, on the association of a nematode and its woodwasp host is out. Look here to see our consideration of how this complex association persists in a natural ecological system.

October 2021: Saskya has taken a faculty position

October 2021: Saskya has taken a faculty position at the Indian Institute of Science, Centre for Ecological Sciences, in Bangalore, India! (https://ces.iisc.ac.in)

July 2021: Our paper Long-term spatio-temporal genetic structure of an accidental parasitoid introduction, and local changes in prevalence of its associated Wolbachia symbiont is in press in Molecular Ecology.

July 2021: Our paper Long-term spatio-temporal genetic structure of an accidental parasitoid introduction, and local changes in prevalence of its associated Wolbachia symbiont is in press in Molecular Ecology. This is a project that Anne Duplouy, Abhilash Nair and I have been working on a long time. It is about what happens if 30 years ago some researchers introduced a butterfly, and accidentally also introduced the parasitoid of the butterfly, and the Wolbachia in the parasitoid. Press release with photos in English here (bit.ly/4eMT9qk), på svenska här (bit.ly/4eWI8BB) An article about this paper in The Guardian here (bit.ly/449rmdJ) , och på svenska här. (bit.ly/4eXDiUz)

April 2021: The website of the research group Mathematical modelling of biological control interaction to support agriculture and conservation

Sept. 2020: Our paper using long term data to assessing potential landscape-level effects of plant-pathogen herbivore-parasitoid interactions is out: Opedal, Øystein H., Ovaskainen, Otso, Saastamoinen, Marjo, Laine, Anna-Liisa, van Nouhuys, Saskya 2020 Host plant availability drives the spatio-temporal dynamics of interacting metapopulations across a fragmented landscape. Ecology in press https://doi.org/10.1002/ecy.3186

August 2018: Our paper on the decline of a hyperparasioid due to increased host butterfly population fluctuation is out

August 2018: Our paper on the decline of a hyperparasioid due to increased host butterfly population fluctuation is out: Nair, A., Nonaka , E., van Nouhuys, S. 2018 Increased fluctuation in a butterfly metapopulation leads to diploid males and decline of a hyperparasitoid Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Download here

April 2018: Kahilainen, A., van Nouhuys, S., Schulz, T. & Saastamoinen, M. 2018

March 2018: Reudler J. H., van Nouhuys, S. 2018 The roles of foraging environment, host species and host diet for a generalist pupal parasitoid. Entomologia Experimentalis et Applicata 10.1111/eea.12657. Download here