Profile: Dr. R. Sukumar is a Professor at the Centre for Ecological Studies, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. He is also the Managing Trustee, Asian Nature Conservation Foundation and a Project Leader, Wildlife Trust Alliance, New York. His areas of interest are wildlife ecology (Asian elephant ecology and management; population dynamics; wildlife-human conflicts), tropical forest ecology (diversity, structure and dynamics of tropical forests), and  climate change (reconstructing Quaternary climate change; assessing impacts of future climate change on forests and biodiversity).

Recent publications

• Ramaswami, G. and Sukumar, R. (2013). Performance of established native seedlings in relation to invasive Lantana camara, rainfall and species’ habitat preferences in a seasonally dry tropical forest. Plant Ecology 214: 397-408.

• Ghosal, R., Kalaivanan, N., Sukumar, R. and Seshagiri, P.B. (2012). Assessment of estrus cyclicity in the Asian elephant (Elephas maximus) by measurement of fecal progesterone metabolite 5α-P-3OH, using a non-invasive assay. General and Comparative Endocrinology 175: 100-108.

• Sano, M., Ramesh, R., Sheshshayee, M.S. and Sukumar, R. (2012). Increasing aridity over the past 223 years in the Nepal Himalaya inferred from a tree-ring δ18O chronology. The Holocene 22: 809–817.

• Prasad, S., Pittet, A. and Sukumar, R. (2010). Who really ate the fruit? A novel approach to camera trapping for quantifying frugivory by ruminants. Ecological Research 25: 225-231.

• Prasad, S. and Sukumar, R. (2010) Context-dependency of a complex fruit-frugivoremutualism: temporal variation in crop size and neighborhood effects. Oikos 119: 514-523

• Suresh, H.S., Dattaraja, H.S. and Sukumar, R. (2010). Relationship between annual rainfall and tree mortality in a tropical dry forest: Results of a 19-year study at Mudumalai, southern India. Forest Ecology and Management 259: 762-769.

• Sano, M., Sheshshayee, M.S., Managave, S., Ramesh, R., Sukumar, R. and Sweda, T. (2010). Climatic potential of δ 18O of Abies spectabilis from the Nepal Himalaya. Dendrochronologia 28: 93-98.

• Ghosal, R., Sukumar, R. and Seshagiri, P.B. (2010). Prediction of estrus cyclicity in Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) through estimation of fecal progesterone metabolite: development of an enzyme-linked immuno-sorbent assay. Theriogenology 73: 1051-1060.