IIT Bombay is organising an Institute Colloquium on Monday, February 25, 2013. The details are as follows:
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Abstract: Some species of insects such as ants, bees and wasps organize themsleves into colonies with social organization and integration, division of labour and caste systems that parallel if not better human societies. The rules governing the workings of such insect societies are of obvious interest to us. The motivation for studying insect societies is similar to that of an anthropologist studying other human societies - the Speaker’s goal is not to imitate them or to justify their behaviour but instead to reflect on how they conduct their affairs. One of speaker’s most interesting findings is that these wasps are extremely aggressive to, and highly intolerant of, other members of their species which do not belong to their colonies. However, the wasps are highly tolerant of each other and display almost no aggression to colony members even when there is considerable conflict. In this talk Prof. Raghavendra Gadagkar will describe and contrast such “war” towards foreigners and “peace” with insiders and also illustrate his research methodology that permits an understanding of these insect societies.
About the Speaker: Prof. Raghavendra Gadagkar is INSA S N Bose Research Professor and JC Bose National Fellow at the Centre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Chairman, Centre for Contemporary Studies, IISc, Honorary Professor, Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Non-Resident Permanent Fellow of the Wissenschaftskolleg (Institute for Advanced Study) in Berlin and Adjunct Professor, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Kolkata.
He has published over 200 research papers and articles and two books: Survival Strategies (Harvard University Press, USA, 1997 and Universities Press, Hyderabad, 1998) and The Social Biology of Ropalidia (Harvard University Press, USA, 2001). His research work has been recognized by a number of awards including the Shanthi Swarup Bhatnagar Prize, B.M.Birla Science Prize, Homi Bhabha Fellowship, B.P. Pal National Environment Fellowship on Biodiversity and the Third World Academy of Sciences award in Biology, to name a few. He is an elected fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences, the Indian National Science Academy, the National Academy of Sciences, India, the Academy of Sciences for the Developing World (TWAS) and Foreign Associate of the National Academy of Sciences, USA.
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