KLI Colloquia are informal, public talks that are followed by extensive dissussions. Speakers are KLI fellows or visiting researchers who are interested in presenting their work to an interdisciplinary audience and discussing it in a wider research context. We offer three types of talks:
1. Current Research Talks. KLI fellows or visiting researchers present and discuss their most recent research with the KLI fellows and the Vienna scientific community.
2. Future Research Talks. Visiting researchers present and discuss future projects and ideas togehter with the KLI fellows and the Vienna scientific community.
3. Professional Developmental Talks. Experts about research grants and applications at the Austrian and European levels present career opportunities and strategies to late-PhD and post-doctoral researchers.
- The presentation language is English.
- If you are interested in presenting your current or future work at the KLI, please contact the Scientific Director or the Executive Manager.
Event Details
Topic description / abstract:
Many species of insects, such as ants, bees and wasps organize themselves into societies comprising a few fertile queens and many sterile workers. Displaying features such as conflict, cooperation, altruism, division of labour, communication and much more, they parallel and sometimes surpass human societies. In this talk I will describe our attempts to use observation and experiments, to understand the workings of one such tropical insect society, the Indian paper wasp Ropalidia marginata, and reflect on whether we can really understand them and about, why we should care.
Biographical note:
Raghavendra Gadagkar, PhD, is DST Year of Science Chair Professor at the Centre for Ecological Sciences and Founder Chair of the Centre for Contemporary Studies at Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India. He is the Non-Resident Permanent Fellow, Wissenschaftskolleg (Institute for Advanced Study) zu Berlin. He has established an active school of research in the area of Animal Behaviour, Ecology and Evolution at the Indian Institute of Science. The evolution of cooperation in social insects, such as ants, bees and wasps, is a major goal of his research. He has published 330 research papers & articles and two books - Survival Strategies (Harvard University Press, USA, 1997) which explains advances in behavioural ecology and sociobiology for non-specialists and The Social Biology of Ropalidia marginata (Harvard University Press, USA, 2001) which summarizes two decades of his research. He has received numerous awards and fellowships. He is an elected member of all three science Academies in India, the Academy of Sciences for the developing world (TWAS), the National Academy of Sciences USA, The American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the German National Science Academy, Leopoldina.
