Changing landscapes, habitat loss, fragmentation, and global climate change have been listed as the main reasons for biodiversity decline worldwide. Now, a new study from the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS), Bengaluru, has added to the growing knowledge that anthropogenic activities can impact genetic connectivity or the movement among habitat patches usually resulting in mating and genetic exchange.

The state of bees, and work from Dr Axel Brockmann's Honey Bee lab at NCBS is covered by the Live Mint in this article. 

 In the backdrop of climate change, NCBS, a subsidiary of TIFR, has taken up a study on the carbon dioxide (CO2) absorption by evergreen forests of Western Ghats, at Nilkunda forest area in Siddapur taluk.

A software engineer from Karnataka, Chandni Gurusrikar,  who was involved in conservation projects across the landscapes of Bandipur,  Nagarhole and Bhadra tiger reserves,  received the wildlife service award of the Sanctuary Nature Foundation. 

Researchers have discovered a new species of non-venomous burrowing snake in Arunachal Pradesh, named Trachischium apteii.

Thanks to efforts from the Bengaluru Butterfly Club (BBC), Karnataka Forest Department and the Indian Foundation for Butterflies (of the National Centre for Biological Sciences - NCBS), the awareness, conservation and detailed documentation of butterflies has helped to have on record more than 170 species found in Bengaluru alone.

In aquatic environments, like the inland rivers in India, the waters are muddy. The visibility is poorer in these parts from more clearer blue oceanic waters. Many of the animals living in these waterways rely far more on sound than sight for their survival.

Pests continuously adapt and become resistant to our efforts to eliminate them, and as ecologists at the National Center for Biological Sciences (NCBS) discovered recently, this happens in nature too, in the fight between plants and insects.

 What exactly is a forest? India’s green cover is not easy to understand. There are different types of greenery, lands where trees shouldn’t crop up even if they can, and the definition of forests, savannas, and other green ecosystems vary across the country. 

An interview with Dr Vinothkumar of the National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bangalore Life Science Cluster, who works with the cryo-electron microscope (Cryo-EM) on membrane proteins and disease. 

Read more and watch the interview.