Research

Biodiversity in South Asia: a genetic lens helps understand its past, conserve its future

Biodiversity sustains human life on earth, making it critical to understand its current and future distribution. India is now the most populous country in the world. Associated with increasing human population size is the loss of wild habitats and land-use change, and the loss of wild species, populations and individuals. And yet Indian citizens depend critically  on this biodiversity for various ecosystem services. In other words, understanding human impacts on biodiversity and its future is of crucial importance in India, yet this field remains in its infancy here. I work on the distribution and origins of biodiversity, and how anthropogenic impacts affect species and population extinction and the possible spread of diseases.

Over the last eighteen years, I have researched the conservation genetics of endangered species in India. A large body of this work has also focused on documenting and understanding the origins of Indian biodiversity and its conservation. Ongoing fragmentation and the resulting novel ecosystems create opportunities for evolution and zoonotic spillover of pathogens, and over the last five years, I have begun exploring the population genetics and emergence of zoonotic pathogens. Through all these research projects, my lab colleagues and I have consistently built tools and capacity in conservation biology, and attempted to translate our knowledge into action. We are the premier laboratory globally for cutting-edge conservation genetics of wild and endangered cats.

Our laboratory at NCBS is happy place! Like all scientists, we create knowledge, train and build the next generation, and communicate our work to a broader audience. In the coming years, we will deepen our understanding of the consequences of genetic erosion, through a Senior renewal fellowship from the Wellcome Trust DBT India Alliance. See more about this research here. Also, with several partners and collaborators, we will use genomic tools to understand potential pathogens, mammalian reservoirs, and their distributions in India’s biodiverse northeast. Stay tuned for more!