
Raghavendra Gadagkar, Ph.D.
DST Year of Science Chair Professor
Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore
Born in 1953 in Kanpur, India
Studied Zoology and Molecular Biology in Bangalore
Project
Can We Understand an Insect Society?
I have just completed writing a book titled Experiments in Animal Behaviour: Cutting-Edge Research at Trifling Cost. This has been published as an open-access e-book by the Indian Academy of Sciences. I will now return to a longer book project that I had begun some years ago, but had put on hold to write the book on "experiments". In the longer book, I will attempt to use my research, in collaboration with a large number of students, on the Indian paper wasp Ropalidia marginata to pose the question "Can We Understand an Insect Society?" I will describe the questions we have asked, the experiments we have performed, and the answers we have obtained. I will also show how the answer to each question inevitably led to the next set of questions, resulting in an endless cycle of questions and answers. In the end, I will leave it to the reader to decide whether we have indeed understood something of the workings of this interesting insect society. I will also continue to spend about half my time writing my fortnightly column "More Fun Than Fun", taking the spirit and joy of science to a wider audience.Recommended Reading
Gadagkar, Raghavendra (2001). The Social Biology of Ropalidia marginata: Toward Understanding the Evolution of Eusociality. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
- (2020 and continuing). "More Fun Than Fun" (column). The Wire Science. https://science.thewire.in/tag/more-fun-than-fun/.
- (2021). Experiments in Animal Behaviour: Cutting-Edge Research at Trifling Cost. Bangalore: Indian Academy of Sciences. E-book. https://www.ias.ac.in/public/Resources/Other_Publications/e-Publications/017/Experiments_in_Animal_Behaviour.pdf?v=1.1.
Publications from the Fellows' Library
Gadagkar, Raghavendra (Bengaluru, 2021)
Experiments in animal behaviour : cutting-edge research at trifling cost
Gadagkar, Raghavendra (2018)
Emergence of cooperation and division of labor in the primitively eusocial wasp Ropalidia marginata
Gadagkar, Raghavendra (2018)
Current indirect fitness and future direct fitness are not incompatible
Gadagkar, Raghavendra (2017)
The evolution of culture (or the lack thereof) : mapping the conceptual space
Gadagkar, Raghavendra (2016)
Gadagkar, Raghavendra (Bangalore, 2014)
Book review : Randomness in evolution
Gadagkar, Raghavendra (2014)
Gadagkar, Raghavendra (2014)
Gadagkar, Raghavendra (2013)
Virgin wasps develop ovaries on par with mated females, but lay fewer eggs