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Bengaluru is one of the fastest growing megacities in India. As such, it provides an in-situ laboratory for studying rural-urban transitions. While urbanization is most evident in the changing landscape with increasing built-up areas, it comes along with changes in ecosystem functions, new economic opportunities, changes in social organization and individual attitudes and behavior. All of these processes are interlinked and mutually depend on each other. This book attempts to integrate studies from a wide scope of disciplinary perspectives and at different spatial scales under the framework of complex social-ecological systems.Agriculture is the prime example of a system in which humans interact with their biophysical environment, and the production systems in the rural-urban interface are profoundly affected by urbanisation. Intensification and diversification of agriculture are immediate responses to urban pressures and demands, and are linked as much to resource (over-)use as to commercialisation. Yet, little is known about the spatial patterns of agricultural transformation in areas of urban sprawl.The focus of the contributions here is explicitly on the interface, in-between the rural and urban systems. It thus differs from the urban-centered perspective of city planners as well as from the rural predominance in most of the agricultural research. In the present volume this focus is implemented by analysing samples along a spatial gradient representing different stages of urbanization. Ongoing time series analyses and a panel study will complement the spatial approach by a temporal dimension.

Scientific Study from the year 2016 in the subject Biology - Zoology,, language: English, abstract: Stingless bees are limited to tropics and subtropics with diversity in species and share morphological and behaviour patterns. Stingless bees are major pollinators of flowering plants in the tropics and improve crop productivity. Trigona iridipennis Smith were kept in India for centuries for the high medicinal value of honey as well as propolis and bee wax. A wide range of variations, especially worker and drone body size and measurement, were reported. Morphometric and geometric analysis provide a valuable tool for the differentiating variations among various honey bees and stingless bees. Based on these back ground, our objectives of this study were 1) to characterize the morphometric aspects of workers in this reported new species of stingless bees and 2) to identify the various similarities and differences existing based on factor and principal component analysis with Trigona iridipennis Smith. A total of 30 samples of workers were collected and various morphometric characters including head length (HL), head width (HW), proboscis length (PL), distance between two dorsal ocelli/lower intercocular distance (DBO), dorsal ocello-ocular distance (DOOD), antennal length (AL), thorax femur length (TFL), thorax tibia length (TTL), thorax metatarsus length (TML), thorax metatarsus width (TMW), thorax forewing length (TFWL), thorax forewing width (TFWW), pterostigma width (PtStW), pterostigma length (PtStW), hind wing length (HWL), hind wing width (HWW), number of hamuli (HAM), abdominal tergite length (AbTL), abdominal sternum width (AbSW), mandible length (MdL) and mandible width (MdW), head length width ratio (HLW), thorax metatarsus length width ratio (TMLW) and thorax forewing length width ratio (TFWLW) were analyzed. One sample (SS1) showed distinct differences in habitat preference (Laterite rock), appearance (size and colour), behaviour (passive) and nest architecture (narrow round entrance tube, snow white brood, cream white food pots). The present study based on the morphometry of stingless bees across Kerala shows that, in spite of the morphological and behavioural variations exhibited by the bees, members of all samples belong to Trigona iridipennis. But one sample (SS1) shows entirely different morphometric characteristics. It was found that this sample belongs to genus LisotrigonaDr. Prem Jose Vazhacharickal is currently working as an assistant professor in the Department of Biotechnology, Mar Augusthinose College, Ramapuram, Kerala, India. He received the research training and academic guidance from Prof. Dr. Andreas Buerkert, University of Kassel, Germany.