Current Lab

We are a group of enthusiastic people who are fascinated by the diversity of life, in form and function. This fascination in combination with our passion for basic science has brought us together here. People in the lab have diverse interests under the overarching theme of behavioural ecology.

BELab-2019

Principal Investigator

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Manjari with the youngest member of lab!

Appointments and Academic History


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Postdoctoral Fellow

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                         Dr. Baheerathan M.

Brief Bio

Baheerathan (aka Bahee) started his career as a bioengineer with a B.Tech (Biotechnology) degree at KCT, Coimbatore. He then pursued a Master's in Genomics at MKU, Madurai. For his Master's dissertation he studied the role of olfaction in the greater short-nosed fruit bat, under the guidance of Prof. G. Marimuthu, a pioneer in Indian Chiropterology. This kindled his interest in bats, sensory ecology and animal behaviour. Bahee then went on to do his Ph.D. with Prof. Hema Somanathan at IISER TVM. For his PhD he studied the visual ecology of three sympatric fruit bats using a combination of methods in ecology, neuroanatomy and behaviour. His PhD work resulted in several novel insights about fruit bat visual ecology. At BEL, Bahee will work on the movement ecology of birds and fruit bats in order to understand how behaviour is shaped by underlying movement patterns.


  • 2023: IISER Mohali Postdoctoral Fellow, BEL, IISERM
  • 2015-2023: Ph.D., IISER Thiruvananthapuram
  • 2013-2015: M.Sc (Genomics), Madurai Kamaraj University
  • 2008-2012: B.Tech (Biotechnology), Kumaraguru College of Technology

Ph.D. Students

Shubham

                           Kanika Rajput (2020 - )

                      UGC Senior Research Fellow

Anway

                             Anway Sarkar (2021- )

                      CSIR Senior Research Fellow

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                           Arusharka Bhattacharyya (2023 - )

                      CSIR Junior Research Fellow

Gaurav

                           Gaurav Singh (2020 - )

                      IISERM Direct PhD student

Harish

                           Harish Kumar (2022 - )

                       UGC Junior Research Fellow

Aryjit

                           Aryjit Satapathy (2023 - )

                      UGC Junior Research Fellow

Kanika, Anway, Harish and Aryjit are all working on various aspects of acoustic communication and behavioural ecology of  social babblers. Gaurav is working on soundscape ecology and passive acoustic monitoring. Arusharka is working on the imoact of infection on cricket behavioural ecology. All of them conduct extensive fieldwork to collect data and do extensive lab-based work. 

Kanika is from Delhi and has a Masters in Environmental Science from Indraprastha Univ.

Gaurav is from Gurgaon and  did an integrated BSMS (Physics) from IISER Mohali. 

Anway is from Arunachal and did an integrated BSMS (Biology) from NISER.

Harish is from Haryana and has a Masters in Zoology from Kurukshetra Univ.

Arusharka is from West Bengal and has a Masters in Zoology with Entomology as his specializations Banaras Hindu University.

Aryjit is from Odisha and has a Masters in Zoology  from the Central University of Kerala.

Master's thesis and Project student


Jungle Babblers

          Prabartak Majumder (MS thesis2024-2025)

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                     Pryia Bhatt (DBT JRF)

Prabartak will be working with Dr. Maude Baldwin in MPI-BI, Seeweisen for  his Master's thesis.


Priya is a DBT JRF at BEL. She completed her BSMS from IISER Mohali and is working on examining the impact of infection on cricket survival and sexually selected traits .