Krishnapriya Tamma
Areas of Interest & Expertise
- Tropical Ecology
- Forest Recovery
- Forest Resilience
- Avian Frugivores
- Avian Community Ecology
- Urban Ecology
Biography
Krishnapriya (Priya as she is fondly called) is an ecologist with an interest in tropical forest ecology and evolution. After completing her BE from RV College of Engineering, Bangalore, she pursued her PhD from National Centre for Biological Sciences-TIFR, Bengaluru, in ecology.
Her PhD thesis focused on biogeography and macroecology of small mammals in the Indian subcontinent. While conducting fieldwork in the eastern Himalayas, she became interested in understanding forest recovery and resilience. Prior to joining the University, she was pursuing her postdoctoral research at the Centre for Ecological Sciences, IISc, on forest-savanna dynamics in Africa.
Currently, her research focuses on monitoring forest resilience in northeast India, and avian frugivore community structure. Recently, she has also initiated projects around urban biodiversity, climate change impacts, and climate justice.
Apart from her research, she likes to contribute to science communication. She is a member of the editorial board of Resonance and is the chief RIT editor at Current Conservation. She likes to bicycle, stare at trees, and garden.
Courses
What is Biology?
Uses case studies from the Indian context, and provides a glimpse of the vast scope and interdisciplinary nature of modern biology.
Introduction to Biology II
Observe, explore and characterise biodiversity
Introduction to Ecology
Explores interactions between organisms and their environments and how these interactions shape the distribution and abundance of species.
Evolutionary Biology
Examines patterns and processes by which evolution occurs and shapes life forms.
Understanding Plants
Do plants see, hear, feel and smell?
Introduction to Biology I
How does life work? Answers from molecular, cellular and evolutionary perspectives.
Certificate Courses
Ecological monitoring for climate change interventions
This four-day residential workshop will introduce participants to simple, low-cost techniques that can be used for local ecological monitoring and discuss how they can be used to inform climate change interventions at the local level.
Articles
An arachnid’s guide to being an ant: Morphological and behavioural mimicry in ant-mimicking spiders
Krishnapriya Tamma, Divya Uma (2022)
Publications
- Krishnan, A, Singh, A and Tamma, K. (2020). Visual signal evolution along complementary color axes in four bird lineages. Biology Open. https://bio.biologists.org/content/9/9/bio052316
- Sheth, C… Tamma, K.., et al. (2020). ‘The devil is in the detail’: Peer-review of the Wildlife Conservation Plan by the Wildlife Institute of India for the Etalin Hydropower Project, Dibang Valley. https://zoosprint.zooreach.org/index.php/zp/article/view/5686
- Majumder, S*., Tamma, K*., Ramaswamy, S and Guttal, V. (2019). Inferring critical points of ecosystem transitions from spatial data. Ecology (*equal contribution) https://doi.org/10.1002/ecy.2722
- Ramachandran, V., Robin, V.V., Tamma, K., Ramakrishnan, U. (2017). Climatic and geographic barriers drive distributional patterns of bird phenotypes within peninsular India, Journal of Avian biology. doi:10.1111/jav.01278
- Krishnan, A*., and Tamma, K*. (2016). Structuring of morphological and acoustic traits in sympatric communities of Asian barbets. Royal Society Open Science. doi: 10.1098/rsos.160117 (* equal contribution)
- Tamma, K., Marathe, A., Ramakrishnan, U. (2016). Past influences present: Species from multiple biogeographic pools sort environmentally in Indian subcontinent, Frontiers of Biogeography.
- Tamma, K and Ramakrishnan U. (2015). Higher speciation and lower extinction rates influence mammal diversity gradients in Asia, BMC Evolutionary Biology. doi: 10.1186/s12862-015‑0289‑1
- Srinivasan, U., Tamma, K and Ramakrishnan U. (2014). Past climate and species ecology drive nested species richness patterns along an east-west axis in the Himalaya, Global Ecology and Biogeography. doi: 10.1111/geb.12082
- Mukherjee, S., Krishnan, A., Tamma, K., Home, C., Navya, R., Joseph S., Das, A., and Ramakrishnan U. (2010). Ecology driving genetic variation: A comparative phylogeography of Jungle cat (Felis chaus) and leopard cat (Prionailurus bengalensis) in India, Plos One. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0013724
Newspaper articles
- Tamma, K (2020, June 10). Human’s mindless plunder can accelerate sixth extinction. The Federal. https://thefederal.com/celebrating-biodiversity/humans-mindless-plunder-can-accelerate-sixth-extinction/
- Tamma, K, and others (2021, June 17). Shifting our gaze: towards a just, inclusive approach to research in the field. The Wire Science. https://science.thewire.in/environment/call-to-decolonise-ecology-conservation-field-research/
On-going Projects
Human impacts on critical thresholds of forest-savanna transitions in Africa Monitoring resilience of forests in protected areas using remotely-sensed technologies