The Indian Society of Evolutionary Biologists (ISEB), an independent consortium of researchers and faculty working on evolutionary biology in India, is holding its first conference on the 24th and 25th of October, 2019, at the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR), Bengaluru. The two-day meeting is themed around ‘Celebrating Ecology and Evolution in India’. It is bringing together eminent researchers and students across the country, who are actively involved in research on evolutionary biology.

In a new study, researchers from the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS), Bengaluru, and the Pennsylvania State University and Colorado State University in the USA, have studied how flies land on ceilings. The researchers have also explored how the fly’s brain integrates visual and balance-related inputs from the surroundings to generate appropriate movement in the wings and legs to achieve a perfect landing.

In a country that predominantly depends on rain for irrigation, loss of crops due to disruptive weather continues to be a source of distress to farmers, and approaches to make crops tolerant to the vagaries of weather are necessary. In a recent study, researchers have shown that, by modifying particular genes, rice plants can be kept alive through periods of acute salinity in their water supply. 

In a recent study, researchers from Agharkar Research Institute, India, Harbin Normal University, China and the University of Colorado, USA, have described a new genus of diatoms called Kulikovskiyia. Diatoms belonging to this genus are currently found only in the Western Ghats of India and Hainan Province of China. The study, funded by the Science and Engineering Research Board, was published in the journal Phycological Research.

Projected to be the third fastest-growing city in the world, Bengaluru's transformation from being the 'Garden City' to the 'Silicon Valley of India' has made it the modern face of the Indian economy. But all this development has come at a cost with the city losing 89% of its green cover in just forty years. Once known for its cool climate, it is now infamous for its horrible traffic and concrete buildings. Middle-class ghettos and affluent gated communities have replaced the famed lakes, and the gardens have been cleared for IT parks. Thanks to the exponential growth, poor urban planning and corruption, experts believe that the city is going to be unlivable in a few years. In a recent study, published in the journal Remote Sensing Application: Society and Environment, researchers at the Department of Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences, University of Albany, State University of New York, have explored the impact of increased urbanisation on Bengaluru. 

In a press announcement, the Green Talents programme, held under the patronage of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, Germany, has announced this year’s 25 winners from all over the word. These awardees, called ‘Green Talents’, will travel to Germany in late October to attend the Science Forum for talented junior researchers from the field of sustainability science.

The flowers in the Himalaya, a favourite among mountaineers, may have borrowed a lesson or two from the adrenaline-high visitors. As they climb higher, mountaineers carry only essential things, shedding any extra baggage. Likewise, the flowers here shrink in their size and hold less nectar to suit their tiny pollinators, finds a recent study on Rhododendrons, a type of woody flowering plants. The study was conducted by researchers at the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and Environment, Bengaluru and is published in the journal Alpine Botany. 

The blackbuck is an antelope species native to the Indian subcontinent. Although the term 'antelope' is loosely used to refer to many ruminating ungulates, the blackbuck is the only animal that belongs to the genus named Antilope. True antelopes belong to one of the four genera—Gazella, Nanger, Eudorcas and Antilope. Scientists are still debating the evolutionary relationships between these members. In a recent study, researchers at the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, have traced the evolutionary relationships of the blackbuck (Antilope cervicapra) using phylogenetics. The study was published in the journal Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution.

A specimen of a cuckoo bee  lay in a museum in Austria for decades before Dr Petr Bugosch took a look at it and described it as a new species, Epeolus ladakhensis. 

Researchers study how fig tree distribution influences fig wasps’ dispersal evolution.