Ajay Narendra

 

RESEARCH

I am interested in how animals find their way to places of significant interest. When animals find large supply of food deposits they need to ensure they ‘know’ enough of that region to revisit the food rich zone. This question gets more interesting in social insects like ants, bees and wasps, since these animals have to return to their nesting place after finding food and if they do not, they die. This remarkable demand lets us study how robust are the strategies they use to find their way back home.

Limitations for foraging

Ants forage not only in different habitats but also at different times of the day. Foraging at specific times of the day is exhibited by some to avoid predators and competitors. Some exhibit this rigidity to avoid foraging in high or cold temperatures. Studies on unrelated species that inhabit different habitats and rely on different food sources has shown surface temperature to be a factor that selects for ants to forage individually. I am currently studying sympatric species of ants to determine the limiting / selecting factors that restrict activity of ants to specific times of the day.

Landmark Guidance

Several of the 12,000 known ants inhabit cluttered landmark rich habitats, such as evergreen forests, deciduous forests, semi-arid deserts. In such landmark rich habitats ants adhere to specific routes over successive trips on both their way out and back in. I am interested in how ants establish and learn such routes. Insects are guided by landmarks not only to establish a route but also to home in to a goal. To register the visual cues associated to the goal, social insects exhibit orientation turns or turn back and look behaviour. On their way back to the goal they match the registered views to their current views. Along with the important question of what makes a cue salient, I am also interested in the context in which such nest associated cues are used.

Path integrator & its interaction with visual information

Several animals including insects are known to take the shortest route back home. Taking a shortest return path i.e., path integration is the primary means of navigation for ants inhabiting featureless habitats, whereas for ants inhabiting cluttered habitats this strategy takes a back stage. Only in the absence of familiar visual information is information read out by the path integrator relied on. I am interested in how insects prioritize what information to use and when.

Eye structure

With closely related species exhibiting different temporal and spatial niches, the diversity in foraging systems is quite likely to expect. Surprisingly there is very little known about the variation in eye structure in the Family Formicidae. Members of this family see their world through an array of facets; each facet consisting of cornea, lens and photoreceptor cells. Ants have typical apposition eyes wherein the rhabdom of each facet receives light only through its own lens. The variation in eye structure in species that occupy discrete temporal niches is a parallel system of research I am interested in.

PHOTOGRAPHY

The response of people to an ant climbing on a tree after seeing a macro photograph of the same is simply unbelievable. Pictures often ensure that people go closer to the insects to observe their behaviour. Personally, identifying commonly found insects by observing their behaviour & nest architecture is a hobby I have been pursuing for a while. I shoot outdoors and use different Canon mounts with 105 mm and 65 mm lenses. I have set up a gallery for ants and spiders which are largely from India and Australia.

My pictures have been used in Scientific Journals, Technical Books, Theses, Posters, Magazines and Daily Newspapers.

MEDIA COVERAGE

Book  review: by John Fellowes in Myrmecological News.

Book  review: On A Trail With Ants, by Hans Peter Katzmann & Martin Pfeiffer at http://antbase.net. Apr-15-2008.

Book review: Ants up close, by Theodore Bhaskaran in Frontline. Jan-19-2008. [link]

Highlighted as the Emerging Talent by Rajesh Parishwad in The Week. Aug-25-2007.

Book review: The world of ants, by Kumaran Sathasivam in The Hindu. May-01-2007.

Victory on a trail of ants, by Vaidehi in Kungumum.  Mar-01-2007.

Book on Indian ants to be released today, by Govind Belgaumkar in The Hindu. Nov-13-2006.

Book review: On A Trail With Ants, by Bittu Sahgal in Sanctuary Asia. Dec-2006. [link]

Ant thereby hangs a tale, by Anand Sankar in The Hindu. Dec-09-2006.

Meticulous Effort, in The Hindu. Dec-04-2006.

On ant trail? Good news in store, by Times News Network, in the Times of India. Nov-13-2006.

IISc research team detect new species of ants in Bangalore, by Swati Sivanand in The Hindu. Sep-26-2006.

No mere Ant’ics these, by Veena Pradeep in Deccan Herald. Oct-30-2005.

He just loves their antics, by Bhumika K in The Hindu Metro Plus. Sep-28-2005.

Two youths on the ant trail, in Times of India. Sep-25-2005.

A day out with ants, in WWF Newsletter 12: 5-6. 2004. [invited contribution - popular science article]

 

CURRENT POSITION

Postdoctoral Fellow

ARC Centre for Excellence in Vision Science

Visual Science Group

Research School of Biological Sciences

Australian National University

Canberra, ACT 2601, Australia.

Email: ajay.narendra@anu.edu.au

SCIENTIFIC CAREER

2006-present. ARC Centre for Excellence in Vision Science Postdoctoral Fellow. Research School of Biological Sciences, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia.

2003-2006. Ph.D. Biological Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia.

2002-2003. Research Assistant. Centre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India.

2000-2002. Project Assistant. Centre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India.

2000-2002. M.Sc. Remote Sensing & Cartography, Madurai Kamaraj University, Madurai, India.

2000. Summer Research Fellow, Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore, India.

1998-1999. Entomology Honors, Department of Zoology, St Joseph’s College of Arts and Science, Bangalore, India.

1997-2000. B.Sc. Environmental Sciences, Chemistry & Zoology, Bangalore University, Bangalore, India.

AWARDS

2006. Photograph selected for display at the Up Close and Spineless Photography exhibition in the Professional category at the Australian Museum, Sydney.

2004. Best student talk award at the Australasian Society for the Study of Animal Behaviour, Adelaide.

2003-2006. International Macquarie University Scholarship, Macquarie University, Sydney.

2002. Photograph published in the Chronicle of Seasons, International Library of Photography, London.

Reviewer for: Asian Myrmecology; Behavioral Ecology; Behavioral Ecology & Sociobiology; Behavioral Processes; Myrmecological News;  New Zealand Journal of Zoology.

PUBLICATIONS

Book

2006. Narendra A & Kumar SM. On A Trail With Ants: A Handbook of the Ants of Peninsular India. Tholasi Prints, Bangalore. 208 Pages; 189 Figures. [Excerpts]

For sales & distribution contact: antbook.india@gmail.com

Journal Articles

2007. Greiner B, Narendra A, Reid SF, Dacke M, Ribi WA & Zeil J. Eye structure correlates with distinct foraging bout timing in primitive ants. Current Biology 17: R879-R880. [abstract]

2007. Narendra A. Homing strategies of the Australian desert ant Melophorus bagoti II. Interaction of the path integrator with visual cue information. Journal of Experimental Biology 210: 1804-1812. [abstract]

2007. Narendra A. Homing strategies of the Australian desert ant Melophorus bagoti I. Proportional path-integration takes the ant half-way home. Journal of Experimental Biology 210: 1798-1803. [abstract]

2007. Narendra A, Cheng K & Wehner R. Acquiring, retaining and integrating memories of the outbound distance in the Australian desert ant Melophorus bagoti. Journal of Experimental Biology 210: 570-577. [abstract]

2007. Narendra A, Si A, Sulikowski D & Cheng K. Learning, retention and coding of nest-associated visual cues by the Australian desert ant Melophorus bagoti. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 61: 1543-1553. [abstract]

2006. Cheng K, Narendra A & Wehner R. Behavioral ecology of odometric memories in desert ants: acquisition, retention and integration. Behavioral Ecology 17: 227-235. [abstract]

2003. Narendra A. Responses of the Asian Weaver Ant, Oecophylla smaragdina towards high quality and quantity food substances. Insect Environment 9: 89-90.

2000. Viswanathan G & Narendra A. Impact of urbanization on the diversity of ants in Bangalore. Journal of Ecobiology 12: 115-122.

2000. Viswanathan G & Narendra A. Food preference in different species of ants. Insect Environment 6: 34-35.

1999. Viswanathan G & Narendra A. A study of the behaviour of the ant Myrmicaria brunnea Saunders towards pheromones. Insect Environment 5: 23-25.

SELECTED TALKS

2007. Narendra A. Homing strategies in ants. Lecture at the Animal Navigation Workshop, Visual Sciences, RSBS, Australian National University, Canberra, AUS.

2007. Narendra A. Foraging and navigation strategies of primitive ants. ANeT Meeting, Patiala, IND.

2007. Homing abilities of ants. Invited Talk at James Cook University, Townsville, AUS.

2007. Narendra A, Reid SF, Greiner B & Zeil J. Homing in twilight: use of polarisation cues by the primitive Bull ant. Vision Down Under, Cairns, AUS

2007. Narendra A, Si A, Sulikowski & Cheng K. Learning retention and viewing of nest associated visual cues. Australasian Society of the Study of Animal Behaviour, Canberra, AUS.

2006. Tracing an ant’s path: insights from the Saharan and Australian desert ants. Invited Talk at Centre for Ecological Science, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, IND.

2005. Narendra A & Cheng K. Sequential navigational strategies in the Australian desert ant. International Ethological Conference, Budapest, Hungary.

2004. Narendra A. Insights into the life of ants: ants at Alice. Invited Talk at Field Naturalists Club, Alice Springs, AUS.