Aniruddha Marathe

I am interested in how different environmental and habitat variables affect biodiversity and how diversity changes with complex interaction of multiple such variables across geographic gradients such as elevation. I think ants are fascinating organisms. They are one of the most diverse and widespread insects. Ants perform roles of decomposers, herbivores, granivores and predators, making them important components of the ecosystem. Therefore, I think, questions such as ‘How different species of ants are are distributed across gradients of environmental variables?’, ‘How many ant species can coexist at a place?’ are not only intuitively interesting but also ecologically important. I am trying to answer these questions by studying ant communities across elevational gradients. The work is carried out in Eaglenest Wildlife Sanctuary in West Kameng district of Aruanchal Pradesh.