![India’s ethology has grown, however to not its full potential [Commentary]](https://foreignshoresnrinews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Harpegnathos_saltator_fight-1.jpg)
- The thirty eighth Worldwide Ethological Congress, Behaviour 2025, is being held on the finish of August in Kolkata.
- Over the previous 25 years, from the twenty sixth Congress, additionally held in India, to the present Congress, there was a rise within the variety of authors, talks, symposia, establishments concerned, phenomena investigated, and animal species studied, indicating that ethology has flourished.
- Nevertheless, the geographical unfold of authors and establishments the place ethology is pursued continues to be woefully insufficient, writes the creator of this commentary.
- The views on this commentary are that of the creator.
The Worldwide Council of Ethologists (ICE) was born quickly after the second World Warfare when a number of distinguished ethologists of the day, from either side of the battle, together with Niko Tinbergen, Gerard Baerends (Netherlands), Konrad Lorenz (Austria), William Thorpe, J.Z. Younger (UK), Erich von Holst, Otto Koehler (Germany), Paul Weiss, and Karl Lashley (USA), met in Cambridge, UK. The ICE has since been nurturing the expansion of ethology worldwide primarily by organising the Worldwide Ethological Congresses (IEC) about as soon as each two years. The primary IEC was held in Buldern, West Germany in 1952. This yr the thirty eighth IEC, christened ‘Behaviour 2025’ is being held in Kolkata from August 25 to 30. This can be a good alternative to take inventory of the state of ethology in India.
The state of ethology in India
Ethology is outlined, within the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, as “the scientific and goal research of animal behaviour, normally with a deal with behaviour below pure situations”. The definition by Peter and Jeanne Medawar of their inimitable Philosophical Dictionary of Biology is, nonetheless, extra perceptive and philosophical: “The phrase ‘ethology’ is just not merely an alternate designation for the science of behaviour: it’s a time period that stands for a real revolution in organic thought. Ethology is rooted in commentary of animal behaviour, an exercise that solely simpletons assume easy… commentary is a troublesome and complicated course of calling upon all of the mental virtues: consideration, endurance, heightened consciousness, warning in coming to conclusions, braveness in framing expectations”.
Blessed with a few of the world’s richest biodiversity hotspots, India may be an exemplary laboratory for the research of ethology. As a result of ethology can usually be pursued at a comparatively low value with out the necessity for very subtle laboratories and costly expertise and it may possibly significantly profit from a big human useful resource, it’s an much more enticing possibility for Indians. Certainly, ethology is one in all few fields of recent biology wherein Indian scientists can realistically hope to develop into world leaders. However how far have we capitalised on this chance?
After I was a pupil of B.Sc. (Hons.) in Zoology at what was then known as Central School in Bangalore, my professor, M.D. Parthasarathy established the Ethological Society of India (ESI) in 1970. This created some consciousness and far pleasure amongst many people. We grew to become conscious of the work of Niko Tinbergen, Konrad Lorenz, Karl von Frisch, Jane Goodall and plenty of others. The chance to attend the annual conferences of ESI and take heed to displays of analysis papers was an added supply of inspiration. It’s on this surroundings that I learn King Solomon’s Ring and have become a life-long admirer of animal behaviour. However I need to confess that I painfully seen the big hole within the amount and high quality of ethological analysis being pursued in India in comparison with Europe, USA and Japan.
Enhancements since 1999
Whereas engaged on this commentary on the present standing of animal behaviour analysis in India, and the way it has developed over the previous few a long time, I realised that I don’t have the time to conduct an in depth evaluation. Nevertheless, a singular alternative offered itself. The 26th IEC was organised in India, in actual fact in Bengaluru, in 1999 by Shakuntala Sridhara, the then President of ESI. A comparability of the papers offered from India on the 1999 and 2025 Congresses would possibly provide a glimpse of the progress we have now made prior to now two-and-a-half a long time.
Through the 26th IEC, Indian ethologists organised 5 symposia, and made 52 contributions which included three plenary talks, 17 invited symposia talks, 29 contributed talks and three posters. These had been made by 73 authors drawn from 33 establishments unfold throughout 13 states of India however closely skewed to Karnataka (primarily Bengaluru). The themes of their contributions included acoustic communication, altruism, audio-motor management, behavioural ecology, division of labour, echolocation, foraging methods, habitat choice, host-parasite interactions, insect-plant interactions, nest defence, olfaction, oviposition, pest and wildlife administration, inhabitants ecology, predation, secondary sexual characters, sex-ratio, sexual choice, social behaviour, territoriality, tri-trophic interactions, and plenty of extra. The animals studied included silkworms, honeybees, wasps, frogs, snakes, waterfowl, bats, mice, wild canines, leopards, langurs, and people.
Within the 38th IEC in 2025, in contrast, Indian ethologists have organised 11 symposia, and are making 182 contributions which embrace one keynote, one plenary, 45 invited symposia talks, 53 contributed talks and 82 posters. These are being made by 171 authors drawn from 39 establishments unfold throughout 13 states of India, once more closely skewed to Karnataka (Bengaluru). The themes of their contributions embrace acoustic communication, aggression, allogrooming, antipredator behaviour, anthropogenic worry, behavioural ecology, behavioural plasticity, birdsongs, coevolution, competitors, cognition, collective behaviour, colony-level health, dispersal, dog-human relationships, ethno-ornithology, meals processing behaviour, foraging behaviour, gestural communication, grooming, human-animal conflicts, play behaviour, pollination, reproductive division of labour, roosting behaviour, scavenging methods, thermal adaptation, vocalisation and plenty of extra.
The animals they research embrace ponerine ants and weaver ants, honey bees, bumble bees, wasps, termites, crickets, butterflies, social spiders, mantises, mosquitoes, chrysomelid beetles, coral reefs, egg-parasitoids, isopods, freshwater prawns, Deccan mahseers, zebrafish, cichlid fishes, rock lizards, anurans, crocodiles, home sparrows, starlings, Bengalese finches, lovebirds, raptors, budgerigars, dugongs, Eurasian Curlew, waterbirds, palm squirrels, free-ranging canines, blackbuck, dolphins, Asian elephants, fruit bats, leopards, langurs, Hoolock gibbons, people, and extra.
Within the two-and-a-half a long time because the 1999 convention, ethology has clearly flourished in India as judged by the spectacular improve within the numbers of authors, talks, symposia, establishments concerned, the phenomena investigated, and animal species studied. Studying by the abstracts of the papers offered within the two conferences reveals fairly clearly that along with the amount, the standard and class of ethological analysis in India has markedly improved.
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The unfold of ethology is uneven and insufficient
It’s troubling, nonetheless, that ethology has not unfold extra evenly throughout the nation. The geographical unfold of authors and establishments the place ethology is pursued continues to be woefully insufficient; the slight improve is on account of some elite establishments being based in some elements of the nation. Conventional universities, schools and faculties are virtually lacking. Given the convenience with which ethology may be pursued with modest grants and services, one would have hoped that many extra, and particularly smaller, less-endowed establishments and fewer well-funded scientists to have capitalised on the chance supplied by ethology to do world-class analysis, in such a biodiversity wealthy nation as ours. Each biology schoolteacher and each zoology faculty lecturer within the nation has the potential of making vital data, new to science, by exploring the bugs, spiders, fish, frogs, snakes, birds and canines of their yard, whereas additionally coaching and galvanizing their college students. This has regrettably not occurred.
It is very important discover the explanations for this failure. I can see at the very least three distinguished elements.
One is clearly the rise and onslaught of reductionist cell and molecular biology. Nobody can complain towards the follow of those disciplines. What’s objectionable is the simultaneous discount in status and alternatives for ethology, particularly of the classical selection. It’s not so unusual to listen to the opinion that ethology and ecology aren’t actually ‘science’. By denigrating a topic like ethology on this ignorant manner, we’re dropping the chance to develop into world leaders in an internationally flourishing self-discipline.
Second, it’s common to see 75-90% of the school positions to be dedicated to sub-organismic biology whereas organismal biology, together with ethology and ecology languish with a mere one or two college positions even in comparatively massive biology departments. Typically one will get the sensation that it’s certainly the very actual chance that organismal biologists like ethologists and evolutionary biologists will probably be recognised as world leaders that creates prejudice towards them in India.
Lastly, there’s a frequent tendency in India to disallow or severely prohibit area work. In a few of our most prestigious establishments college and college students are anticipated to use for depart of absence (which is supposed for private work) to go to their area websites and research their animals. And when the restricted variety of days of depart are exhausted, no extra area work is permitted. Imposing and succumbing to such ludicrous and counter-productive bureaucratic rules nips the expansion of many a world-class ethologist within the bud.
Ever an optimist, it’s nonetheless, my fervent hope that the thrilling programme lined up on the 38th IEC and the good present of energy by Indian members will assist garner extra respect and status for the self-discipline of ethology in India, resulting in its extra widespread follow.
The creator is Secretary-Common, Worldwide Council of Ethology and INSA Senior Scientist, Centre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science.
Quotation:
- Medawar PB, Medawar JS (1983) Aristotle to Zoos — A Philosophical Dictionary of Biology. Harvard College Press, Cambridge, Mass., USA.
- Lorenz Okay (1952) King Solomon’s ring: new mild on animal methods. Routledge, London; New York.
- Sridhara S ed. (1999) Contributions to the XXVI Worldwide Ethological Convention Bangalore, India, 2-9 August 1999. Blackwell-Wiss.-Verl., Berlin.
- Worldwide Ethological Congress on Behaviour 2025. https://behaviourindia2025.in/index.html Accessed 15 November 2024
- Gadagkar R (1996) The Pains and pleasures of doing ethology in India. In: Ramamurthi R, Geethabali (eds.) Readings in Behaviour. New Age Worldwide Restricted, Publishers, New Delhi., pp 1–13
- Gadagkar R (2021) Experiments in Animal Behaviour: Chopping-Edge Analysis at Trifling Value. Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore.
Banner picture: A pair of lion-tailed macaques interact in allogrooming. Picture by UdayKiran28 by way of Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).
