CONSEQUENCES OF MATE PREFERENCE LEARNING
Social environments influence many behaviors in animals, both during their development and during their adult stage. We now know that individuals can incorporate past experiences and use them to make future behavioral decisions. This happens when individuals are choosing whom to mate/court (pre-mating), with evidence both in males and females from a wide group of animals. But we do not know if these experiences can influence post-mating decisions.
In this project, we are using Bicyclus anynana butterflies to determine the effects of pre-mating social experience and their perceived preference of female phenotype on male spermatophore proteins using proteomics.
GENETICS OF MATE PREFERENCE LEARNING
Many animals with have the capacity to learn from past experiences. There are many examples of learning in the animal world, like song learning in birds, learning foraging locations in bees and social learning in mammals. However, learning is a neurological change that needs to be transformed to short or long-term memory, which usually requires changes in neural gene expression during and after a training experience.
​
Animals can also learn to choose the fittest, con-specific mate to increase reproductive fitness. Different selection pressures to learn mate preferences can have the potential for reproductive isolation. Determining the genetic basis of mate preference learning can provide the proximate cause for mate-preference learning based differences in sexual selection. We are tackling this using Heliconius butterflies found in Central and South American rain forests.
BEHAVIORAL PREDATOR AVOIDANCE
Most insects are under tremendous predation pressure. Butterflies are no different, leading to the evolution of diverse defence mechanisms to decrease predation probability. These primary defences like crypsis, evolution of eye spots, false antennae, sequestering toxins and being unpalatable, aposematic signalling and mimicry decrease the probability of predation.
Heliconius butterflies are toxic and unpalatable, have bright wing colors for aposematic signaling, and many species have converged on similar wing patterns to form mimicry rings. Despite these defenses, they are attacked by predatory birds. This research is focusing on whether these unpalatable butterflies behaviorally avoid predators as an added protection.
BEHAVIORAL THERMOREGULATION
Ectothermic animals rely on environmental factors to regulate their body temperatures. Pigmentation of scales, presence of hair like structures help maintain body temperatures. However, most animals also thermoregulate behaviorally by basking in the sun. Butterflies, like other ectotherms, bask to acquire optimal body temperature for flight activities like searching for mates by males and egg laying by females.
​
Behavioral thermoregulation in butterflies varies mainly with air temperature and other climatic variables like cloudiness and wind speed. Taking advantage of temperature gradient across an elevation, we documented the amount of time spent by Indian Cabbage White (Pieris canidia) butterfly at different elevations in the Western Himalayan mountains. We found that air temperature decreases with increase in elevation. The butterfly populations at the high elevation range basked more compared to mid and low elevation populations. In general, basking was more common during the early hours of the day and decreased as the day progressed.
PLANT-POLLINATOR INTERACTIONS
Human induced global changes are rapidly changing the ecology and behaviours of many species. This also includes the interactions between species that are vital for human survival, like pollination. Increased annual temperatures and the use of pesticides are changing plant traits and pollinator behaviors.
​
During my project assistant-ship at NCBS from 2016-2018, I was part of a project investigating the effects of climate warming on plant-pollinator interactions, both at an elevational gradient in Eastern Himalayas, as well as by using a crop species Coriandrum sativum in South India where we measured floral volatile profiles and pollinator visitations under warming and control treatments.
​
During my graduate research assistant-ship at the University of Arkansas, I was part of a team working on understanding the circadian apple floral volatile profiles, apple flower nectar production, and nocturnal pollinator visitations in apple orchards of Northwest Arkansas.
