Name: Vidya T.N.C.

Designation and address:

Ramanujan Fellow
Evolutionary and Organismal Biology Unit
Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research
P.O. Box 6436, Jakkur
Bangalore 560064, India.

Phone: +91-80-22082968
Fax: +91-80-22082766
Email: tncvidya[at]jncasr.ac.in

Date of birth: August 5, 1976

Nationality: Indian

Education:

• PhD., 2005, Centre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.
• M.S. in Biology, 2000, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India.
• B.Sc. in Zoology, Botany, and Chemistry, 1997, St.Francis' College (autonomous, affiliated to Osmania University), Hyderabad, India.

Research experience:

• Postdoctoral research on mongoose sociogenetics (February 2007 - June 2008):
  As a postdoctoral researcher at Stellenbosch University, South Africa, I worked on the sociogenetics of yellow mongoose populations in South Africa. The yellow mongoose (Cynictis penicillata) is facultatively social and seems to represent an intermediate step along the path to communal living and breeding (Balmforth 2005, D.Phil. Thesis, University of Sussex). While they live solitarily or in small family groups in the open semi-arid areas of southern Africa, individuals of a population on farmed land in the Western Cape Province of South Africa form larger groups, forage together, exhibit communal vigilance, and show communal breeding, in which non-breeding helper males and females, guard, groom, and provision young that are not their own. Communal breeding in this species may have been a relatively recent response to the competition ensuing from high population densities in farmed areas and helping in this species could thus be a facultative strategy in individuals unable to disperse and breed independently. Therefore, using genetic and behavioural data, I tried to determine whether increased sociality and helping behaviour in the farmland population were based on kinship or if they were a response to ecological factors such as competition for resources.
• Postdoctoral research on large mammal biogeography (May 2004 - December 2006):
  After completing my doctoral thesis, I worked at the Centre for Ecological Sciences as a postdoctoral project associate, on the biogeography and conservation of the Indian gaur (Bos gaurus) in southern India, from May 2004 - December 2005. The work on gaur stemmed from the surprising finding, during the course of my doctoral work, of significant genetic differentiation between elephant populations on either side of the Palghat Gap in southern India. This gap is the only discontinuity in the Western Ghats mountain range and seems to have possibly been a biogeographic barrier that subsequently broke down. As concordance in patterns of genetic structuring across species would be required to substantiate this hypothesis, I initiated and worked on a much larger project (from January 2005 - December 2006) that examined the population genetic structure of gaur in more detail as well as the population genetic structure of additional mammalian species. Such a project would play a significant role in unravelling the biogeography of the central and southern Western Ghats. The first phase of work on the Indian gaur was supported by a grant from the Pittsburgh Zoo Conservation Fund, Pittsburgh, and subsequent work on several large mammals was funded by a grant from the Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India. I have recently restarted work in this direction.
• Doctoral dissertation (April 2000 - April 2004):
  My doctoral project was carried out at the Centre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, and in collaboration with the Centre for Environmental Research and Conservation, Columbia University, New York, and led to a thesis titled Population genetic structure and phylogeography of the Asian elephant (Elephas maximus) with special reference to India. This dissertation focused on examining population genetic structure and phylogeography of the Asian elephant at various spatial scales. At the level of the global Asian elephant range, elephants from nearly all the major populations in India and from populations in Myanmar, Vietnam, and southeast Asia were sampled, and genetic data from these populations combined with existing genetic data on Asian elephants in a comprehensive phylogenetic analysis of the species. At the level of elephant ranges within India, patterns of gene flow between regions and populations within India were analysed and the results used to formulate management recommendations for this endangered species. At a finer spatial scale, the southern Indian populations were inspected for hierarchical population genetic structure, breaks in gene flow, and population bottlenecks. Finally, genetic relatedness between individuals within and across social groups within a population was measured out to obtain insights into social organization and male dispersal in the Asian elephant. Thus, this study enabled inferences to be drawn about social organization, genetic structure, and phylogeography at the regional and global scale. Genetic analyses of free-ranging elephants were made possible by non-invasive sampling of fresh dung, which was used as the source of DNA.
  Thesis advisor: Prof. R. Sukumar, Centre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science; collaborators at the Centre for Environmental Research and Conservation, Columbia University: Prof. Don J. Melnick, Dr. P. Fernando.
• M.S. dissertation (January 1999 - April 2000):
  In my M.S. dissertation, A study on the intestinal parasite loads of the Asian elephant (Elephas maximus) in southern India, I examined the ecological correlates of intestinal parasite loads, such as the effect of habitat, season, body condition, age, sex, and parasite loads of same-group members, in the Asian elephant in southern India.
  Thesis advisor: Prof. R. Sukumar, Centre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science.
• Field experience and short projects:
  I have carried out fieldwork across the elephant range in India and have been involved in the field data collection and analyses of demographic and behavioural data on elephant populations in southern India. I have also actively participated in radiocollaring operations of elephants organized jointly by the Centre for Ecological Sciences, Asian Nature Conservation Foundation, and the West Bengal Forest Department, during which GPS collars were fitted to free-ranging elephants in northern West Bengal.
  Short projects that I have undertaken include one on "Human-elephant interactions in the context of road traffic and tourism in Mudumalai Wildlife Sanctuary, southern India" that a summer student did the fieldwork for, a project titled "Spatial distribution of brood in the nests of the primitively eusocial wasp Ropalidia marginata" that I carried out while at Prof. R. Gadagkar's lab at the Centre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, from July - December 1998, and projects on "Foraging behaviour of the common langur (Semnopithecus entellus) in Mudumalai Wildlife Sanctuary, southern India", and "Large mammal density estimation using line transects in Mudumalai Wildlife Sanctuary", during May-June 1998, at the Centre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science.

Research Grants:

• Grant from Chester Zoo, Chester, U.K., to carry out a project (February 2007- April 2008) on "Human-elephant interactions in the context of road traffic and tourism in Mudumalai Wildlife Sanctuary, southern India".

• A grant proposal that I wrote on the "Molecular diversity and biogeography of fauna in the Western Ghats, India" was sanctioned by the Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India (2005-2007).

• Grant from the Pittsburgh Zoo Conservation Fund, Pittsburgh, U.S.A., for a ~1 year project (February 2004-2005) on "Phylogeography of the Indian Gaur (Bos gaurus) in southern India with special reference to the Palghat Gap".

Fellowships and visitorships:

• Ramanujan fellowship from the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India, presently being held at the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, August 2008 - present.

• Two-year postdoctoral fellowship from the National Research Foundation, South Africa, held at Stellenbosch University from February 2007 - June 2008.

• Visiting Scholarship at the Center for Environmental Research and Conservation, Columbia University, New York, August 2002 - February 2003.

• Visiting Scholarship at the Center for Environmental Research and Conservation, Columbia University, New York, October 2000 - April 2001.

• Seven-year research fellowship for the Integrated Ph.D. (M.S. and Ph.D.) programme at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, from August 1997 - August 2004.

Awards:

• Indian National Science Academy (INSA) Young Scientist Award 2007.

Publications:

• Vidya TNC, Sukumar R, Melnick DJ. 2009. A range-wide phylogeography of the Asian elephant (Elephas maximus) based on mitochondrial DNA. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Series B 276: 893-902.

• Vidya TNC, Balmforth Z, Le Roux A, Cherry MI. 2009. Genetic structure, relatedness, and helping behaviour in the yellow mongoose in a farmland and a natural habitat. Journal of Zoology (Lond.) 278: 57-64.

• Vidya TNC, Varma S, Dang NX, Van Thanh T, Sukumar R. 2007. Minimum population size, genetic diversity, and social structure of the Asian elephant in Cat Tien National Park and its adjoining areas, Vietnam, based on molecular genetic analyses. Conservation Genetics 8: 1471-1478.

• Vidya TNC, Fernando P, Melnick DJ, Sukumar R. 2005. Molecular genetic structure and conservation of Asian elephant (Elephas maximus) populations across India. Animal Conservation 8: 377-388.

• Vidya TNC, Sukumar R. 2005. Social organization of the Asian elephant (Elephas maximus) in southern India inferred from microsatellite DNA. Journal of Ethology 23: 205-210.

• Vidya TNC, Sukumar R. 2005. Social and reproductive behaviour in elephants. Current Science 89: 1200-1207.

• Vidya TNC, Fernando P, Melnick DJ, Sukumar R. 2005. Population differentiation within and among Asian elephant (Elephas maximus) populations in southern India. Heredity 94: 71-80.

• Vidya TNC, Sukumar R. 2005. Amplification success and feasibility of using microsatellite loci amplified from dung to population genetic studies of the Asian elephant (Elephas maximus): a field study from southern India. Current Science 88: 489-491.

• Fernando P, Vidya TNC, Payne J, Stuewe M, Davison G, Alfred RJ, Andau P, Bosi E, Kilbourn A, Melnick DJ. 2003. DNA analysis indicates that Asian elephants are native to Borneo and are therefore a high priority for conservation. PloS Biology 1: 110-115.

• Fernando P, Vidya TNC, Rajapakse C, Dangolla A, Melnick DJ. 2003. Reliable non-invasive genotyping: fantasy or reality? Journal of Heredity 94: 115-123.

• Vidya TNC, Kumar VR, Arivazhagan C, Sukumar R. 2003. Application of molecular sexing to free-ranging Asian elephant (Elephas maximus) populations in southern India. Current Science 85: 1074-1077.

• Vidya TNC, Sukumar R. 2002. The effect of some ecological factors on the intestinal parasite loads of the Asian elephant (Elephas maximus) in southern India. Journal of Biosciences 27: 521-528.

• Fernando P, Vidya TNC, Melnick DJ. 2001. Isolation and characterization of tri- and tetranucleotide microsatellite loci in the Asian elephant, Elephas maximus. Molecular Ecology Notes 1: 232-234.

Professional organizations:

• Member of the IUCN SSC (World Conservation Union's Species Survival Commission) Asian Elephant Specialist Group.

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Please contact me at tncvidya[at]jncasr.ac.in if you would like a PDF/reprint of any of the papers listed above.

Last updated: September 2, 2009

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