Room 004, School of Arts and Sciences
Central Campus
Whereas some species of animals remain obligatory forest-dwellers, and some others have become totally commensal with humans, several species still are found in the forest habitats as well in the human-dominated areas sharing habitats, and often food resources, with people. The urban environment exposes animals to very different selection pressures than the forest habitat. I will discuss how exposure to encased and hidden food resources in the case of the urban monkeys requires and leads to the emergence of new foraging skills for food extraction and food processing not often observed in their forest counterparts. Such new skills will be demonstrated from studies on the Nicobar long-tailed macaques and the south Indian bonnet macaques. The urban living, however, also exposes them to risky and highly unstable environments threatening their very existence. In the second part of my talk, I will discuss various conservation management strategies that are suitable for forest-dwelling and commensal primates. I will report these strategies from our long-term conservation work on the endangered and obligatory forest-dweller lion-tailed macaques, occasionally forest dweller but largely commensal bonnet macaques, and the nocturnal and elusive slender loris, all requiring different management practices.
Mewa Singh obtained his Master’s degree from Panjab University, Chandigarh, Ph.D. from University of Mysore and training in Wildlife Management from Smithsonian Institution Washington DC. He has been a Fulbright Scholar-in-Residence at Bucknell University Pennsylvania; a teaching assistant at the Smithsonian Institution Washington DC; a Visiting Fellow at the Zoological Society of San Diego; Visiting Fellow at the German Primate Center Gottingen and Cologne Zoo; Summer Professor in Germany; visiting Lecturer in Malaysia, and a visiting Professor at the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow. His research on ecology and behavior of wild mammals, especially of non-human primates, is field based. He has worked in the forests of Himalayas, Western Ghats, Eastern Ghats, and Nicobar Islands. He has published more than 250 research papers in life sciences in prestigious Journals in India and outside, and his edited book titled “Macaque Societies: A Model for the study of Social Organization” is published by Cambridge University, England. He has been honored with prestigious international recognitions including Lifetime Achievement Award of the International Primatological Society, and Fellowship of the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation. He is an elected Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences Bangalore, Indian National Science Academy New Delhi, The National Academy of Sciences India Allahabad and The National Academy of Psychology, India. He is also a Srecipient of prestigious Ramanna Fellowship by the Department of Science and Technology, recipient of J C Bose National Fellowship, and recipient of the Science and Engineering Research Board Distinguished Fellowship. He is also the winner of Sundar Lal Hora Medal in life sciences by the Indian National Science Academy, New Delhi, and Golden Jubilee Science Award of University of Mysore. Presently, he is INSA Distinguished Professor at University of Mysore. In his honor for research in biological sciences, some biologists have named a recently discovered new species of a frog from the Western Ghats as “Nyctibatrachus mewasinghii” or Mewa Singh’s Night Frog and an ant also from the Western Ghats as Lordymyrma mewasinghi. He is the Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Wildlife Science.
In recognition of his outstanding contributions, the University of Mysore has appointed him as Distinguished Professor (for life).
