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Nonlinear dynamical method of projecting the transmission of an epidemic is accurate if the input parameters and initial value variables are reliable. Here, such a model is proposed for predicting an epidemic.A method to supplement two variables and two parameters for this proposed model is demonstrated through a robust statistical approach. The method described here worked well in case of three continuous distributions. Model predictions could be lower estimates due to under-reporting of disease cases. An ad hoc procedure with a technical note is provided in the appendix.

Urban sprawl refers to the extent of urbanisation, which is a global phenomenon mainly driven by population growth and large scale migration. In developing countries like India, where the population is over one billion, one-sixth of the world’s population, urban sprawl is taking its toll on the natural resources at an alarming pace. Urban planners require information related to the rate of growth, pattern and extent of sprawl to provide basic amenities such as water, sanitation, electricity, etc. In the absence of such information, most of the sprawl areas lack basic infrastructure facilities. Pattern and extent of sprawl could be modelled with the help of spatial and temporal data. GIS and remote sensing data along with collateral data help in analysing the growth, pattern and extent of sprawl. With the spatial and temporal analyses along with modelling it was possible to identify the pattern of sprawl and subsequently predict the nature of future sprawl. This paper brings out the extent of sprawl taking place over a period of nearly three decades using GIS and Remote Sensing. The study also attempts to describe some of the landscape metrics required for quantifying sprawl. For understanding and modelling this dynamic phenomenon, prominent causative factors are considered.

Not many of us would count frogs among the animals we love. Frogs do not figure anywhere near the top of the list even among animal lovers and conservation biologists. The phrase one often hears among conservationists is ‘charismatic mega-fauna’, and they tell us that these are easy to sell in conservation public relations. It is true that you cannot really hug and cuddle a frog and yet a frog has just put India prominently on the world map. The discovery of a unique frog being variously dubbed as the Jurassic frog, pig-nosed frog and the coelocanth of frogs, from the Western Ghats is justifiably causing ripples across the disciplines of biodiversity, vertebrate phylogeny and biogeography. Writing in a recent issue of Nature1, S. D. Biju of the Tropical Botanical Garden and Research Institute, Thiruvananthapuram and Franky Bossuyt of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium, describe their discovery and point out why they have not only had to assign this frog to a new species but to a new genus and a new family as well. In a parallel study published in this issue of Current Science, Sushil K. Dutta of Utkal University, Bhubaneshwar, along with colleagues from the Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun; Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Hyderabad and Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment, Bangalore has described the same frog using similar morphometric and molecular techniques and arrived at pretty much the same conclusions.

For over a century, the term break has been used for spells in which the rainfall over the Indian monsoon zone is interrupted. The phenomenon of 'break monsoon' is of great interest because long intense breaks are often associated with poor monsoon seasons. Such breaks have distinct circulation characteristics (heat trough type circulation) and have a large impact on rainfed agriculture. Although interruption of the monsoon rainfall is considered to be the most important feature of the break monsoon, traditionally breaks have been identified on the basis of the surface pressure and wind patterns over the Indian region. We have defined breaks (and active spells) on the basis of rainfall over the monsoon zone. The rainfall criteria are chosen so as to ensure a large overlap with the traditional breaks documented by Ramamurthy (1969) and De et al (1998). We have identified these rainbreaks for 1901-89. We have also identified active spells on the basis of rainfall over the Indian monsoon zone. We have shown that the all-India summer monsoon rainfall is significantly negatively correlated with the number of rainbreak days (correlation coefficient -0.56) and significantly positively correlated with the number of active days (correlation coefficient 0.47). Thus the interannual variation of the all-India summer monsoon rainfall is shown to be related to the number of days of rainbreaks and active spells identified here. There have been several studies of breaks (and also active spells in several cases) identified on the basis of different criteria over regions differing in spatial scales (e.g., Webster et al 1998; Krishnan et al 2000; Goswami and Mohan 2000; and Annamalai and Slingo 2001). We find that there is considerable overlap between the rainbreaks we have identified and breaks based on the traditional definition. There is some overlap with the breaks identified by Krishnan et al (2000) but little overlap with breaks identified by Webster et al (1998). Further, there are three or four active-break cycles in a season according to Webster et al (1998) which implies a time scale of about 40 days for which Goswami and Mohan (2000), and Annamalai and Slingo'(2001) have studied breaks and active minus break fluctuations. On the other hand, neither the traditional breaks (Ramamurthy 1969; and De et al 1998) nor the rainbreaks occur every year. This suggests that the 'breaks' in these studies axe weak spells of the intraseasonal variation of the monsoon, which occur every year. We have derived the OLR and circulation patterns associated with rainbreaks and active spells and compared them with the patterns associated with breaks/active minus break spells from these studies. Inspite of differences in the patterns over the Indian region, there is one feature which is seen in the OLR anomaly patterns of breaks identified on the basis of different criteria as well as the rainbreaks identified in this paper viz., a quadrapole over the Asia-west Pacific region arising from anomalies opposite (same) in sign to those over the Indian region occurring over the equatorial Indian Ocean and northern tropical (equatorial) parts of the west Pacific. Thus it appears that this quadrapole is a basic feature of weak spells of the intraseasonal,variation over the Asia-west Pacific region. Since the rainbreaks are intense weak spells, this basic feature is also seen in the composite patterns of these breaks. We find that rainbreaks (active spells) are also associated with negative (positive) anomalies over a part of the cast Pacific suggesting that the convection over the Indian region is linked to that over the east Pacific not only on the interannual scale (as evinced by the link between the Indian summer monsoon rainfall and ENSO) but on the intraseasonal scale as well.

Urban growth identification, quantification, knowledge of rate and the trends of growth would help in regional planning for better infrastructure provision in environmentally sound way. This requires analysis of spatial and temporal data, which help in quantifying the trends of growth on spatial scale. Emerging technologies such as Remote Sensing, Geographic Information System (GIS) along with Global Positioning System (GPS) help in this regard. Remote sensing aids in the collection of temporal data and GIS helps in spatial analysis. This paper focuses on the analysis of urban growth pattern in the form of either radial or linear sprawl along the Bangalore - Mysore highway. Various GIS base layers such as builtup areas along the highway, road network, village boundary etc. were generated using collateral data such as the Survey of India toposheet, etc. Further, this analysis was complemented with the computation of Shannon's entropy, which helped in identifying prevalent sprawl zone, rate of growth and in delineating potential sprawl locations. The computation Shannon's entropy helped in delineating regions with dispersed and compact growth. This study reveals that the Bangalore North and South taluks contributed mainly to the sprawl with 559% increase in built-up area over a period of 28 years and high degree of dispersion. The Mysore and Srirangapatna region showed 128% change in built-up area and a high potential for sprawl with slightly high dispersion. The degree of sprawl was found to be directly proportional to the distances from the cities.

Selective poaching of Asian elephant (Elephas maximus) males for ivory has resulted in highly female-biased adult sex ratios, necessitating regular monitoring of population structure and demography. We demonstrate that molecular sexing from dung-extracted DNA, based on ZFX-ZFY fragment amplification and ZFY-specific BamHI site restriction, can be applied to estimate sex ratios of free-ranging Asian elephants, in addition to or instead of field demographic methods. The adult sex ratios using molecular sexing in Nagarahole and Mudumalai-Bandipur reserves during May 2001 were 1:3.1, which matched the demography-based sex ratio for the same month, and 1:9.4, respectively.

The origin of Borneo's elephants is controversial. Two competing hypotheses argue that they are either indigenous, tracing back to the Pleistocene, or were introduced, descending from elephants imported in the 16th–18th centuries. Taxonomically, they have either been classified as a unique subspecies or placed under the Indian or Sumatran subspecies. If shown to be a unique indigenous population, this would extend the natural species range of the Asian elephant by 1300 km, and therefore Borneo elephants would have much greater conservation importance than if they were a feral population. We compared DNA of Borneo elephants to that of elephants from across the range of the Asian elephant, using a fragment of mitochondrial DNA, including part of the hypervariable d-loop, and five autosomal microsatellite loci. We find that Borneo's elephants are genetically distinct, with molecular divergence indicative of a Pleistocene colonisation of Borneo and subsequent isolation. We reject the hypothesis that Borneo's elephants were introduced. The genetic divergence of Borneo elephants warrants their recognition as a separate evolutionary significant unit. Thus, interbreeding Borneo elephants with those from other populations would be contraindicated in ex situ conservation, and their genetic distinctiveness makes them one of the highest priority populations for Asian elephant conservation., Comparison between DNA sequences of Borneo elephants with those of other Asian elephants settles a longstanding dispute about the origins of these endangered animals

Ropalidia marginata is a primitively eusocial polistine wasp widely distributed in peninsular India. As in most other primitively eusocial insects studied so far, colonies are headed by a single queen who monopolizes reproduction while the remaining female wasps in the colony function as sterile workers. Unlike in other species however, R. marginata queens are strikingly docile individuals who show little or no physical dominance. When such a behaviourally docile queen is removed from a colony, one of the remaining individuals becomes extremely aggressive, and is known from previous work, to go on to become the next queen if the original queen is not returned. When the original queen is returned after a day’s absence, she re-establishes herself as the queen and she usually manages to do so with little or no aggression. We hypothesize that R. marginata queens use dominance behaviour to suppress worker reproduction in the beginning, and that they use pheromones to regulate worker reproduction once they establish themselves and start laying eggs. If this hypothesis is correct, R. marginata would be an ideal model system to study the possible evolutionary transition from physical inhibition to chemical regulation of worker reproduction, and the transition from primitively eusocial to highly eusocial in general.

Recent reports have indicated that China, India and Russia are headed for a major public health calamity with regard to AIDS if indeed the calamity is not already upon these countries. It is therefore of some concern that there is uncertainty associated with existing estimates of the number of HIV infected individuals in India. According to a report, the US Central Intelligence Agency has predicted that India will have 25 million AIDS cases by 2010 (National Intelligence Council, USA 2002). The Government of India was quick to point out that these estimates are exaggerated. The World Bank has projected 10.9 million AIDS cases by 2024 (The Hindu, 17 November 2002), on the assumption that adequate intervention measures are implemented (table 1). The National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) (2002), the nodal agency for HIV surveillance in India has estimated 3.97 million HIV cases by the end of year 2001. In this article, I try to highlight the importance of accuracy of HIV estimates. I assume that infection by HIV in an individual is a strong indicator of the future development of AIDS.

Mathematical and statistical models can serve as tools for understanding the epidemiology of human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome if they are constructed carefully. This article is meant to be an introduction to AIDS-related mathematical biology for scientists with a non-mathematical background. An applicable dynamical model is also explained.

Social insect species that exhibit overlap of generations, cooperative brood care and reproductive caste differentiation have been termed eusocial. Among these, those that also exhibit morphological caste differentiation are termed highly eusocial while those that have morphologically identical queen and worker castes are termed primitively eusocial. Because queens and workers are not morphologically differentiated in primitively eusocial species, caste differentiation is often post-imaginal. The processes by which some individuals succeed in becoming reproductive queens while others end up as sterile workers in primitively eusocial species is of obvious interest. Such post-imaginal reproductive caste differentiation is absent in highly eusocial species because reproductive caste differentiation in these species is usually pre-imaginal. On the other hand, further differentiation of the workers into different kinds of task specialists is a phenomenon that has been extensively studied in highly eusocial species (Wilson, 1971). There has seldom been an opportunity to study both post-imaginal reproductive caste differentiation as well as post-imaginal division of non-reproductive labour in the same species because these two phenomena usually do not occur in the same species. Ropalidia marginata is an old world tropical primitively eusocial wasp widely distributed in southern India. Although classified as primitively eusocial by the traditional criteria of overlap of generations, cooperative brood care, reproductive caste differentiation and absence of morphological differentiation between queens and workers (Gadagkar, 2001a,b), R. marginata appears to have acquired some features resembling highly eusocial species. One such feature concerns the mode of division of non-reproductive labour among the adult wasps. R. marginata exhibits a remarkably well-developed honeybee like age polyethism. Workers show a strong tendency to feed larvae, build the nest, forage for pulp and forage for food, in that order, as they age. The frequency and probability of performance of different tasks is strongly influenced by the age of the individual (Naug and Gadagkar, 1998a). Like in the honeybees, age polyethism in R. marginata is very flexible and this flexibility comes from the fact that workers are allocated tasks based more on their relative age rather than their absolute age. This can be demonstrated experimentally by creating artificial colonies containing only young individuals (young cohort colonies) or containing only old individuals (old cohort colonies). In young cohort colonies, precocious foragers, i.e., some individuals who begin to forage at an early age when they would not do so in normal colonies, compensate for the absence of older individuals (Naug and Gadagkar, 1998b). In old cohort colonies, hard working nurses, i.e., some individuals who feed larvae at rates higher than they would in normal colonies, compensate for the absence of younger individuals (Agrahari and Gadagkar, submitted). Juvenile hormone modulates post-imaginal reproductive division of labor in primitively eusocial species and promotes the production of queens (e.g., Polistes) while it modulates age polyethism and promotes the production of foragers in highly eusocial species (e.g., the honeybee). Since R. marginata shows both post-imaginal regulation of reproductive division onabor as well as age polyethism, it is a particularly interesting model system to study the effect of juvenile hormone. A single, topical application of 100 ~g. of juvenile hormone-III per female wasp accelerates ovarian development of wasps held in isolation. Similar application to wasps released back on to their natal nests has no effect on their rate of behavioral development as witnessed from the age of first performance of feed larva, build, bring pulp and bring food. It appears, therefore, that in R. marginata, juvenile hormone has retained its function of modulating reproductive division of labor and has not acquired the function of modulating age polyethism (Agrahari and Gadagkar, 2003).

International audience; Five villages undertaking joint forest management (JFM) were chosen in Uttara Kannada district, Karnataka for assessing regeneration in plantations and nearby natural forests of the village. Species number, stem density, diversity index, similarity in species composition in less disturbed and disturbed forests and plantations in the village were compared. Stem density was low in all the disturbed forests; however, the species number was low in disturbed forests of three villages and high in two villages. Plantations showed lower diversity values compared to the adjacent natural forests. Regeneration in all less disturbed forests was better compared to the disturbed counterparts. Villages were ranked based on number of landless families, per capita forest available and number of cut stems. Assessment of village forests using ranks indicates that parameters such as per capita availability, cut stems in the forests may determine the success of JFM.

Some ecological factors that might potentially influence intestinal parasite loads in the Asian elephant (Elephas maximus Linn.) were investigated in the Nilgiris, southern India. Fresh dung samples from identified animals were analysed, and the number of eggs/g of dung used as an index of parasite load. Comparisons across seasons and habitats revealed that parasite loads were significantly higher during the dry season than the wet season, but were not different between the dry-deciduous and dry-thorn forests in either season. After accounting for the effect of age on body condition, there was no correlation between body condition, assessed visually using morphological criteria, and parasite load in either season. Individuals of different elephant herds were not characterized by distinct parasite communities in either season. When intra-individual variation was examined, samples collected from the same individual within a day differed significantly in egg densities, while the temporal variation over several weeks or months (within a season) was much less. Egg densities within dung piles were uniform, enabling a simpler collection method henceforth.

Cultivating trees in the agricultural systems is one of the major practices in the tropics of South and Southeast Asia1. It is characterized by an intensive integration of forest trees, agricultural and horticultural crops, and shrubs with a basic objective to ensure sustained availability of multiple products as direct benefits such as food, vegetables, fruits, fodder, fuel, foliage, medicine, and raw materials for agricultural implements. Other indirect benefits and services such as ornamentals, shading, live-fencing and shelter-belt or wind-breaks are also derived2. Such intermixing of species of agriculture and forestry, often termed as‘agroforestry’ came into international prominence as a potential source of solutions of many inter-related problems of production and conservation troubling land-use systems in the tropical and subtropical regions3. It has also been stated that the tree components along with field crops lead to efficient use of sunlight, moisture and nutrients in agro-ecosystems than in monocropping of either agricultural or forestry crops1. This kind of practice is more popular in Kerala, where home-gardens are built around coconut orchards4. Such home-gardens and agroforestry systems also prevail in humid tropics of the Western Ghats, Karnataka. However, there are no specific studies detailing the status of such systems in Karnataka, though a study on the use of tree biomass is available in the semi-arid zone of the state5,6.

The Asian elephant (Elephas maximus) is believed to number about 45,000 in the wild and is distributed across several populations over South and Southeast Asia. It is an important flagship species for the conservation of biodiversity as well as being a cultural symbol of the people of this region. We analyse a Geographical Information System database of administrative forest divisions constituting four Project Elephant Reserves designated for southern India, in an attempt to prioritize them for specific conservation action and funding allocation. We compute a conservation value for each of these divisions by using five variables characterizing habitat, population and biodiversity attributes. We also compute threat values for each, using two variables which represent the most significant threats. Based on a cluster analysis we demonstrate that divisions with high conservation values have large elephant distribution areas, preferred habitat areas and elephant

Objective identification and description of mimicked calls is a primary component of any study on avian vocal mimicry but few studies have adopted a quantitative approach. We used spectral feature representations commonly used in human speech analysis in combination with various distance metrics to distinguish between mimicked and non-mimicked calls of the greater racket-tailed drongo, Dicrurus paradiseus and cross-validated the results with human assessment of spectral similarity. We found that the automated method and human subjects performed similarly in terms of the overall number of correct matches of mimicked calls to putative model calls. However, the two methods also misclassified different subsets of calls and we achieved a maximum accuracy of ninety five per cent only when we combined the results of both the methods. This study is the first to use Mel-frequency Cepstral Coefficients and Relative Spectral Amplitude - filtered Linear Predictive Coding coefficients to quantify vocal mimicry. Our findings also suggest that in spite of several advances in automated methods of song analysis, corresponding cross-validation by humans remains essential.

The identification and biochemical characterization of microbial species by electrochemical methods have helped to develop microbial sensors that are rapid and effective. In this article, we present results of biochemical characterization of five fungi, the assimilation and biochemical characterization of various substrates and tolerance to selected inhibitors. The results are based on the respiratory rate and assimilatory profile of these fungi and are more rapid and reliable. The experimental results are discussed here with reference to individual fungus. Further, the advantages of the electrochemical assimilation for the biochemical characterization of the microbes have been discussed.

Vegetative and reproductive phenology of 107 (52 shrubs, 8 liana, 11 climbers and 36 herb species) understorey species of tropical moist forests of Uttara Kannada district in the Western Ghats of South India was monitored from November 1983 to December 1985, through fortnightly visits to eight one- hectare sites. A prominent peak in leaf flush, flowering and fruiting occurred in the pre-monsoon period in shrubs and lianas, while leaf abscission occurred during the post-monsoon winter period. In the climbers and herbs, flowering and fruiting were concentrated in a single peak during the post- monsoon period. Leaf flush and flowering in deep-rooted shrubs and lianas may have been triggered by changes in day-length and temperature; moisture availability may govern these events in the shallow-rooted climbers and herbs. It is argued that moisture availability, herbivore, pollinator and disperser abundance may have shaped the phenological patterns of the species in these forests.

Early voyagers to the Americas, including Central America, Mexico, Peru, and Chile, found many forms of peppers, among them the 'hot' (pungent) ones. In Spain these hot peppers are called chili, meaning from Chile, and in India, chillies. When asked to guess the source of chillies, one might think of Mexico. However, despite the plant's popularity in that country, it is believed that chillies- or, to use the misleading but widely used name by which they are called in the United States, chili peppers-originated in South America, after which they spread to Central America. Most of the varieties of pepper referred to as chili peppers belong to Capsicum annuum L; some varieties with "chili" in their name are actually C. frutescens L.

Diacamma ceylonenseis a queenless, ponerine ant whose colonies are headed by a single, mated, egg-laying worker referred to as the gamergate. Thus, new colonies are a result of dispersal by wingless gamergates. This is expected to influence patterns of colony dispersal and spatial distribution of genetic variablity. In order to facilitate the study of population genetic structure we have identified six unique, polymorphic, microsatellite loci. We have used fluorescence tagged primers to detect polymorphism at these loci.

The male song of the duetting grasshopper Chorthippus biguttulus consists of syllables alternating with noisy pauses. The syllable-pause structure is important for song recognition by the female. Using playback experiments we investigated the mechanism by which intensity modulations within the song pattern are used to detect syllable onsets and offsets. We varied the relative onset level (level of the syllable beginning relative to the noisy pause) and the relative offset level (level of the noisy pause relative to the syllable end) independently in different experiments. For all females, an increase in intensity defining the syllable onset was necessary to evoke responses. Syllable offset cues were not always necessary: some females responded to continuous noise stimuli wherein only syllable onsets were marked by short pulses of high intensity. Those females that did not require syllable offset cues did not, however, lack a functional pause detection mechanism, since their responses to model songs containing silent pauses were restricted to a given range of pause durations. We propose that syllable-pause detection involves two independent processes: (1) syllable onset detection by a phasic neuronal unit that can be re-activated only after a short pause, and (2) the rejection of unacceptably long pauses by a second unit.

A study was undertaken in Biligiri Rangan hills Temple wildlife sanctuary, Karnataka covering an area of 540 km(2) by laying 134 plots measuring 80 m x 5 m at 2-km intervals over the sanctuary, to understand the influence of two weeds, Lantana camara and Chromelina odorata, on species richness and stem density, All stems above 1 cm DBH were enumerated. Plots were classified based on the presence and absence of Lantana and Chromelina. Species richness and stem density were high in the plots infested with Lantana compared to control and lower species richness was recorded in plots infested with Chromelina compared to Lantana, It is argued that Lantana may not suppress the growth of other species; it probably grows in the plots with more moisture, preferred by many other species.

There are"several reasons why it gives me great pleasure to introduce the following ten excellent articles relating to biodiversity. First, they are the result of a seminar organized by the students of the Indian Institute of Science (more specifically, a student group called frasthutha), students who were, and I hope continue to be, deeply concerned about the quality of life on our campus, quality of life defined in the broadest sense. Second, taken together, these articles convey at once, both the grandeur of our biodiversity and also the need to care for it. We at the Indian Institute of Science have the good fortune of inheriting a large, well-preserved, nearly natural habitat spanning about 180 hectares. It therefore becomes our duty (both for moral and practical reasons) to understand and care for this rich heritage. And that is precisely the message of the papers in this volume. Third, the Journal of the Indian Institute of Science has come forward to publish these articles, a gesture I find most appropriate and encouraging.

Traditional tolerance of wild animals, which may be harmful to humans, their settlements and livelihood have contributed substantially to Indias successful record of conserving some of the larger mammals and their habitats. This attribute is at variance with the developed world, where a number of large mammals have been extirpated through active eradication campaigns. Incorporating intrinsic traditional tolerance has so far, not featured in the countrys conservation planning. On a broader level, the UNESCO Man and Biosphere Reserve concept seeks to combine conservation concerns with sustainable use of ecosystems resources through close cooperation with local communities, taking advantage of traditional knowledge, indigenous products and appropriate land management. However it falls short of incorporating variance among settlements in their propensity to coexist with wildlife and their habitats into reserve design. This paper, thereby, attempts to augment the biosphere concept by proposing a protocol which discriminates settlements on their propensity for coexisting with wildlife and their habitats. A framework for discrimination is suggested using a set of hypothetical parameters which quantify attributes affecting the coexistence propensity of settlements. Based on this discrimination, a scheme for prioritizing settlements for relocation is elaborated. It is also proposed that the prioritization is considered along with a landscape and socio-economical analysis before ultimate relocation decisions are made.

Species richness, tree and stem density, basal area and recruitment details were monitored for ten years (1984 to 1994) in eight one-hectare forest sites in evergreen and moist deciduous forest zones of the tropical rain forests in Uttara Kannada district of the Western Chats in southern India, Changes in species richness and basal area were observed in majority of the forest sites. Loss of more number of stems and trees as well as species was observed in minor forests of the evergreen forest zone. Higher species richness and basal area were observed in reserve forests, perhaps as a result of restricted access. Occurrence of more number of species over ten years In minor forests of moist deciduous zone indicates opening of canopy, favouring growth of other species. Regeneration of existing species in the study plot is suggestive of the site potentiality to retain its physiognomic status. Appearance of species with different physiognomic characters and reduction in basal area suggest greater extraction pressure, implying the deteriorating vegetation status. Increase in the basal area could be due to recruitment, compensatory growth of the existing trees/stems and due to the fast growth of the coppicing trees/stems.

The therapeutic benefits of fever have been recorded since the time of Hippocrates. At the turn of the 20th century, syphilis was a dreaded disease whose neuro-degenerative effects were terrible and many mental institutions were occupied with patients suffering from it; there was no effective treatment available then.

The scope of the Biological Diversity Bill, tabled in the monsoon 2000 session of the Indian Parliament is excessively wide covering all biological resources. Instead it should focus on diversity related end-uses such as drugs, industrial enzymes, cosmetics, dyestuffs, plant growth regulators, emulsifiers, oleoresins and genes used for improving crops and livestock through breeding and genetic intervention. It should seek to regulate collection and movement of such biodiversity resources and knowledge of their use out of limited local areas regardless of whether local people or outsiders serve as the collectors at the field level.

I find myself in full sympathy with Gordon Conway's analysis and prescriptions (Conway 2000).I especially agree with his call for a new culture, with appropriate systems and ongoing institutional support, that provides careful monitoring, open reporting and transparency, and above all, a place for public participation about the impact of plant biotechnology on the environment, human health, and the viability and sustainability of the food system. We need not only the transnational corporations, such as Monsanto to which Conway's remarks were addressed, but also governments of the developed and the developing world, and the scientific establishment, to promote the emergence of such a new culture.

The last ten years have witnessed the shifting fortunes of the fluctuating asymmetry (FA) paradigm (called the fluctuating paradigm by Simmons et al 1998). FA is the small (often < 1%) random deviations from perfect bilateral symmetry that occur during the development of symmetrical traits. The asymmetry is considered to be indicative of developmental instability or the inability of the genome to buffer development against environmental stressors (Swaddle 1999).

Fully mapped tree census plots of large area, 25 to 52 hectares, have now been completed at six different sites in tropical forests, including dry deciduous to wet evergreen forest on two continents. One of the main goals of these plots has been to evaluate spatial patterns in tropical tree populations. Here the degree of aggregation in the distribution of 1768 tree species is examined based on the average density of conspecific trees in circular neighborhoods around each tree. When all individuals larger than 1 centimeter in stem diameter were included, nearly every species was more aggregated than a random distribution. Considering only larger trees (≥ 10 centimeters in diameter), the pattern persisted, with most species being more aggregated than random. Rare species were more aggregated than common species. All six forests were very similar in all the particulars of these results.

Conflicts are ubiquitous in the living world. Especially in social animals, there are many subtle and complex conflicts whose origin and resolution are hard to understand; success in doing so has only been achieved rather recently. Somewhat paradoxically, it required an understanding of the mechanism of evolution of altruism before one could attempt to understand the origin and resolution of these conflicts. I will first discuss our current understanding of the evolution of altruism and then discuss two examples of recent attempts to understand the origin and resolution of conflicts: (1) conflicts in some birds on who should breed, father or son and (2) conflicts in honey bees on whether to be nice to their brothers or to their nephews.

In all diploid organisms such as ourselves, each individual inherits one set of chromosomes from the mother and another set from the father. It is generally assumed that once these chromosomes reach our bodies, they lose any ‘memory’ of where they came from. However there is evidence that chromosomes (and the genes they contain) sometimes get differentially imprinted as they pass through a male or female body and this imprint may be retained when the chromosomes are passed on to the next generation1–6. There is also evidence that DNA methylation is a mechanism by which chromosomes may acquire such male-specific or female- specific imprints.

Human agriculture which is believed to have originated some 10,000 years ago has rightly been considered the most important development in the history of our species. Virtually all the plants which we consume today are derived from cultivars that have been bred and modified by humans for thousands of years. There has also been extensive exchange of cultivated crops from one part of the globe to another. While consuming plants and their products, we tend to forget that the cultivation of coffee originated in Ethiopia, that of tobacco around Mexico, tomato and potato in South America, rice in South East Asia and so on. The impact of agriculture on the further development of human societies has been profound – high rates of population growth, urbanization and economic surpluses all of which were pre-requisites for the development of modern civilization.

Although the ALL Protocol put forward in this books was only recently developed and is published for the first time here, it is derived from the experiences of many myrmecologists and from numerous studies of ant diversity over the years. Before the development of this protocol, studies of ant diversity utilized a wide variety of methods. The ALL Protocol is the result of an extensive evaluation of these methods in different counties and under variety of conditions. The studies by Delabie et al. provided the strongest data for choosing methods for the ALL Protocol, but a number of other key studies were also influential in its development.

The stable carbon and oxygen isotope ratios in cellulose of C3 and C4 plants growing on the surface of a montane peat bog in the Nilgiri hills, southern India, were measured. The mean monthly delta(13)C values in cellulose of both C3 and C4 plants are found to be significantly related to rainfall, while the delta(18)O values are sensitive to changes in maximum temperature and relative humidity of the region. Further, higher delta(18)O values were observed in C4 plants compared to C3 plants, suggesting that C4 plants are probably less sensitive to relative humidity as compared to C3 plants and are able to photosynthesize even during drier conditions. The plant isotope-climate correlations thus established can be used for reconstructing the past temperature and rainfall conditions of the tropics from the isotopic ratios of peat deposits, derived from a mixture of C3 and C4 plants in the region.

The Indian Patent Act is being amended, in part, because of our commitments under General Agreement on Trade and Tariff (GATT). Similar considerations have prompted us to formulate a Protected Plant Varieties Act. At the same time, a National Biological Diversity Act is also on the anvil in response to our commitments to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). The CBD has advanced beyond the conventional intellectual property rights (IPR) regime to accept the sovereign rights of nations over their biodiversity resources, and the need thereof to share benefits of commercial applications of traditional knowledge of sustainable uses of biodiversity resources with local communities. It is important for India to benefit from these provisions and create a legislative framework that would be a model for other developing countries as well. Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) are now being extended to biological resources, beyond the conventional domain of mechanical and chemical innovations. On this new biological frontier, considerable pertinent knowledge and resources already exist in the public domain, and CBD has clearly accepted the need to respect and share its benefits with these public-domain resources. These considerations must be reflected in the Amended Patent Act. It is also vital that we ensure a proper harmonization of the provisions of the new Patent Act, Protected Plant Varieties Act, and the Biological Diversity Act. In this article we discuss measures for disclosure of country of origin, relevant public knowledge or agreements in the IPR applications under these acts.

The stable carbon and oxygen isotope ratios in cellulose of C3 and C4 plants growing on the surface of a montane peat bog in the Nilgiri hills, southern India, were measured. The mean monthly $\delta^{13}C$ values in cellulose of both C3 and C4 plants are found to be significantly related to rainfall, while the $\delta^{18}O$ values are sensitive to changes in maximum temperature and relative humidity of the region. Further, higher $\delta^{18}O$ values were observed in C4 plants compared to C3 plants, suggesting that C4 plants are probably less sensitive to relative humidity as compared to C3 plants and are able to photosynthesize even during drier conditions. The plant isotope-climate correlations thus established can be used for reconstructing the past temperature and rainfall conditions of the tropics from the isotopic ratios of peat deposits, derived from a mixture of C3 and C4 plants in the region.

The lush green Indian Institute of Science campus is located in the north of Bangalore. The Maharaja of Mysore, Krishnaraja Wodeyar IV, generously gifted the Institute with 150.54 hectares of land. At present the extent of land holding of the Institute is 179.28 hectares (Suresh, H. S. and Harish Bhat, The Flora of IISc Campus, Technical Report, 1998). Prior to its establishment in 1909, it was said to have open scrubland and farmland. The present landscape is largely due to the planning of the visionaries like C. V. Raman, G. H. Krumbigel, Homi Bhabha, B. S. Nirody and C. N. R. Rao.

The problem of the origin of life is very old one. While there have been some distinguished supporters for theories suggesting extra-terrestrial origin and subsequent transport of life to earth, the remaining scientific community has built up progreesively more convincing, if more complex , reconstruction of the possible events leading to the origin of life on primitive earth. As it happens so often, our present beliefs about the origin of life on earth go to Charles Darwin in whose inmitable style "But if (and oh, what a big if) we could concieve in small little pond, with all sorts of ammonia and phosphoric salts, light, heat, electricity, etc., present, that a protein compound was chemically formed ready to undergo still more complex changes, at the present day such matter would be instantaly devoured or observed, which would not have been the case before living creatures were formed."

In the primitively eusocial wasp, Ropalidia marginata, low levels of intra-colony genetic relatedness, lack of intra- colony kin discrimination and acceptance of young wasps into alien colonies, prompted us to investigate whether or not there exists a cost of such high genetic variability. Freshly eclosed wasps were paired either with their nestmates or with their non nestmates and their performance in nest building and brood care were compared. There was no demonstrable difference between nestmate and non nestmate pairs in terms of success in raising adult offspring, time required for nest initiation, brood developmental period and productivity. There was also no difference in the efficiency of cooperation and division of labour between the nestmate pairs and non nestmate pairs. These results reinforce the idea that the haplodiploidy hypothesis is insufficient to explain the prevalence of worker behaviour in R. marginata and emphasize the importance of factors other than genetic relatedness in the evolution of eusociality.

`We have explored in the Western Ghats the patterns of tree diversity in relation to vegetation types which have been primarily defined on the basis of structure and phenology, A total of 20,785 individuals, belonging to 398 species, were enumerated along 108 belt transects covering a total area of 75 ha, from localities that spanned the entire length of the hill chain of the Western Ghats ($8^oN$ to $21^oN$ latitude and $73^oE$ to $75^oE$ longitude) in peninsular India. These transects were assigned to 7 vegetation types and were shown to be distinctive in species composition. These types include closed canopy evergreen, semi-closed canopy evergreen, stunted evergreen, semievergreen, moist deciduous, dry deciduous forests, and scrub/savanna vegetation. Dry deciduous forests with low levels of density and diversity harbour a rather exclusive set of species. The most diverse tree assemblages belong to the semievergreen forest type, which harbours widespread species extensively shared with other vegetation types. The semiclosed evergreen forests resemble semievergreen forests in many ways. In contrast, the stunted evergreen forests and scrub/savanna exhibit low values of tree density and diversity; their component species have very weak tendencies to co-occur with each other. The evergreen and moist deciduous forests exhibit moderate to high density and diversity and moderate levels of distinctiveness of species composition. The evergreen forests however resemble dry deciduous forests in harbouring species with a strong tendency to co-occur and many species with restricted distributions. More moist vegetation types shelter a higher proportion of evergreen and endemic trees and a lower proportion of medicinally-useful species. These results have significant implications for devising a sampling strategy.

This paper presents a review of a conceptual framework for approaching questions on the origin, evolution and maintenance of ethical systems in animal societies. It also traces links in selected ideas in moral philosophy leading to Darwin and the implications of the Darwinian paradigm of natural selection for morality in humans and other animals.

Populations of many animal species worldwide are threatened with loss of genetic variation due to substantial reduction in population size.

Caste polymorphism, defined as the presence within a colony of two or more morphologically differentiated individuals of the same sex,is an important character of highly eusocial insects both in the Hymenoptera (ants, bees and wasps) and in the Isoptera (termites),the only two groups in the animal kingdom where highly eusocials pecieso ccur. Frequently,caste polymorphism extends beyond mere variations in size (although the extent of variations in size can be in the extreme) and is accompanied by allometric variations in certain body parts. How such polymorphism has evolved and why, in its extreme form, it is essentially restricted to the social insects are questions of obvious interest but without satisfactory answers at the present time. I present a hypothesis entitled 'genetic release followed by diversifying evolution',that provides potential answers to these questions.I argue that genetic release followed by diversifying evolution is made possible under a number of circumstances. One of them I propose is when some individuals in a species begin to rely on the indirect component of inclusive fitness while others continue to rely largely on the direct component,as workers and queens in social insects are expected to do. Thus when queensb egint o rely on workers for most of the foraging, nest building and brood care,and workers begin to rely increasingly on queens to lay eggs-when queen traits and worker traits do not have to be expressedin the same individual-1 postulate the relaxation of stabilizing selection and new spurts of directional selection on both queen-trait genes and worker-trait genes (in contrasting directions) leading to caste polymorphism.

Stable carbon isotope ratios of peats dated (by C-14) back to 40 kyr BP from the montane region (> 1800 m asl) of the Nilgiris, southern India, reflect changes in the relative proportions of C3 and C4 plant types, which are influenced by soil moisture (and hence monsoonal precipitation), From prior to 40 kyr BP until 28 kyr BP, a general decline in delta(13)C values from about - 14 per mil to - 19 per mil suggests increased dominance of C3 plants concurrent with increasingly moist conditions, During 28-18 kyr BP there seems relatively little change with delta(13) C of - 19 to - 18 per mil, At about 16 kyr BP a sharp reversal in delta(13)C to a peak of - 14.7 per mil indicates a clear predominance of C4 vegetation associated with arid conditions, possibly during or just after the Last Glacial Maximum, A moist phase at about 9 kyr BP (the Holocene Optimum) with dominance of C3 vegetation type is observed, while arid conditions are re-established during 5-2 kyr BP with an overall dominance of C4 vegetation, New data do not support the occurrence of a moist phase coinciding with the Mediaeval Warm Period (at 0.6 kyr BP) as suggested earlier, Overall, the climate and vegetation in the high altitude regions of the southern Indian tropics seem to have responded to past global climatic changes, and this is consistent with other evidences from India and other tropical regions.

Species assemblages have been characterized in terms of numbers of individuals or various measures of diversity such as species richness or evenness. We may characterize sets of such assemblages in terms of how widespread their constituent species are and how cohesive the assemblages are. In this paper we define measures of these properties termed ubiquity and hospitality respectively. We explore the distribution of these two parameters, as well as the more commonly used measures of diversity for a set of 132 bird assemblages censused with the help of one hour long transects of 100 m X 500 m to 600 m in 21 localities covering 9 major types of habitats from across the entire length of the hill chain of Western Ghats in peninsular India. We find that while biological parameters characterizing individual transects are positively correlated amongst each other, various measures of ubiquity and hospitality form a distinct group of parameters positively correlated with each other, and physical parameters such as latitude and rainfall form a third independent group of positively correlated parameters. Hospitality and ubiquity thus turn out to be independent parameters providing biologically useful insights. For instance, montane evergreen forests and monoculture plantations both harbour species poor communities. However those of montane evergreen forests are cohesive assemblages of restricted geographical distributions, while those of monoculture comprise species of widespread occurrence drawn from many different habitat types.

Reconciling development with conservation of biological diversity has emerged as a significant concern in recent years. This has been primarily attempted through establishment of protected areas taken out of mainstream development, and through regulating impacts of major development projects with the help of environmental impact assessment exercises. We believe that these two instruments need to be complemented by continually providing inputs into the biodiversity implications of ongoing development processes (and accompanying habitat transformations) at the landscape and regional level. It is desirable that such assessment of biodiversity implications is based on a transparent, objective methodology which could be used by a wide range of practitioners working with the emerging decentralized processes of development planning. In this paper we outline such a methodology focussing on birds. This involves assigning a conservation value to bird species based on readily available information on their geographical range, habitat preference, endangerment and taxonomic distinctiveness. This may then be translated into a mean composite conservation value for bird assemblages characteristic of different habitat types. By combining this information with that on ongoing processes of habitat transformations, we can provide an assessment of how development processes are affecting biodiversity values. We illustrate this methodology by assessing the conservation value of 586 bird species of Western Ghats, and a sample of bird assemblages of seven major habitat types of the region. We conclude that the most serious loss of biodiversity value arises in the transformation of montane evergreen shola forests/high altitude grasslands into monoculture plantations.

Chital or axis deer (Axis axis) form fluid groups that change in size temporally and in relation to habitat. Predictions of hypotheses relating animal density, rainfall, habitat structure, and breeding seasonality, to changes in chital group size were assessed simultaneously using multiple regression models of monthly data collected over a 2 yr period in Guindy National Park, in southern India. Over 2,700 detections of chital groups were made during four seasons in three habitats (forest, scrubland and grassland). In scrubland and grassland, chital group size was positively related to animal density, which increased with rainfall. This suggests that in these habitats, chital density increases in relation to food availability, and group sizes increase due to higher encounter rate and fusion of groups. The density of chital in forest was inversely related to rainfall, but positively to the number of fruiting tree species and availability of fallen litter, their forage in this habitat. There was little change in mean group size in the forest, although chital density more than doubled during the dry season and summer. Dispersion of food items or the closed nature of the forest may preclude formation of larger groups. At low densities, group sizes in all three habitats were similar. Group sizes increased with chital density in scrubland and grassland, but more rapidly in the latter—leading to a positive relationship between openness and mean group size at higher densities. It is not clear, however, that this relationship is solely because of the influence of habitat structure. The rutting index (monthly percentage of adult males in hard antler) was positively related to mean group size in forest and scrubland, probably reflecting the increase in group size due to solitary males joining with females during the rut. The fission-fusion system of group formation in chital is thus interactively influenced by several factors. Aspects that need further study, such as interannual variability, are highlighted.

It is often argued that natural selection acting at the level of the individual may not be sufficient to explain the evolution of altruism. We suggest that before accepting such a point of view in any specific instance, the parsimonious course would be to examine all possible ways in which individual-level selection might act and rule out its sufficiency only when the postulated means for its action are either inherently improbable or experimentally disproven. As an illustration we propose an evolutionary model, based on the individual cell as the unit of selection, for the maintenance of 'altruistic' behaviour by pre-stalk cells in the social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum.

A total of 76 species of macrolichens were recorded from 16 transects of 50 m x 10 m between altitudes of 2100 m and 4500 m in western parts of Nanda Devi Biosphere Reserve of Garhwal Himalayas. Forty-one of these are lignicolous species occurring on woody, 14 are terricolous growing on soil and 10 are saxicolous inhabiting rocks only, The other 11 species occur on more than one major types of substrate, Lichen species diversity is at its highest in middle altitudes between 2700 m and 3700 m where all three major substrates are simultaneously available, Lichen species diversity of Nanda Devi Biosphere Reserve appears to be under threat from deforestation and fires, as well as from loss of soil microhabitats due to overgrowth of weeds seemingly caused by cessation of summer grazing in alpine pastures.