So which tree's seed is this?

It is a seed of a tree which originally grew in the Amazon Delta in the floodplains. The seeds float buoyantly on water, and are dispersed by water. However they are actively taken by large fish like the Black Piranha and other animals. It is an important food source for them.

The tree was introduced here into the Indian peninsula as a cash crop, but sadly in the heavy rainfall hills. With the net result, it has become one of the largest causes for deforestation. Any land for sale in Coorg or South Canara districts, with whichever crop, is bought with Gulf money, cleared and planted with this tree. Fanciers of the old British Raj might recollect that just one chap named Morrison could clear a beautiful swathe of 150ft tall evergreen forest as an experiment, all six hundred acres of it, and then just plant this tree up, in the Sampaje forest range of Coorg in a past century. It still remains as an ugly clearing even to this day.

The reason why this tree is making inroads is that it does not require people to be present there tending it all the time. So it is very convenient for absentee landlordism.

This tree according to me could now be used for foreshore afforestation in our eutrophic lakes instead, since its yield is not used for food. It could perhaps help reduce eutrophication. Currently its product is cheaper to import than grow here. So it is a small saving grace for our mixed species farms and farmland.

It is Rubber. Heavea brasiliensis.

Oct 2016.
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E&OE, KRISHNA MB.
making free time is culture!

Hobbies as tools to break rigid subject boundaries

© Krishna MB, 2005.

THE CONTENT OF THE TALK GIVEN TO THE BIOLOGY STUDENTS OF M.E.S. COLLEGE, BANGALORE, FOR THE INAGURATION OF THE BOTANICAL ASSOCIATION, BY KRISHNA MB, SEPTEMBER 2005.

In a world where everybody has an eye on the clock, it is free time which becomes a casualty. Often it is work, personal and family needs that we think of all the time. With the result, we hardly make time for any other activity.

Free time is important: it encourages us to relax and lets us do our things at our own pace. It is a great stress reliever. And it favours hobbies. Hobbies are activities we all need to have. They encourage creativity, stimulate thinking, and help us learn to do things without supervision. Most importantly, it helps us to learn, to break free beyond the formalised learning that always happens in our educational career.

Hobbies are a great way to re-learn the subjects that we have studied. They give a new perspective where we would have just relied on the textbook knowledge that we have picked up. They help us to apply what we have learned.

If we were able to bring in new perspectives, we would learn to look at things in a different way. It is this freedom to look at alternative learning paths that hobbies can give. We just cannot afford to ignore hobbies.

Take for example, the botany, zoology or biology that we study in our formal education; and the computers that we all are surrounded with. Consider for a moment what we were taught about our nervous system. In all probability we would have been infused with a thought that the forebrain (cerebrum) is the most evolved part and the others (cerebellum backwards) are more "primitive".

For a moment, let us go to an alternate subject, computer science. We could think of our electronic wrist watch as a computer, but of a kind which does only one job, repetitively over and over again without tiring out. We could say that it too requires software to compute, only that the software is hard-wired, i.e. It is neither recordable nor erasable.

Think of a mobile phone. It has a SIM-card to store the details of the calls that you get and store your phone numbers. It has a tiny amount of free space to store all this information. The rest of the "software", the instructions required for its working, is embedded: pre-recorded so that it cannot be erased or altered.

Compare this to an ant (or a bee) for example. It comes with the preloaded un-erasable software called instinct. And it has a small space to store all the details of where it found food, where its nest is, and all the details required to navigate to and from the nest. All this is packaged into a tiny little brain. Something like the tiny little computer your mobile comes with. This is the kind of software that cannot be tampered accidentally, and its fail safe reliable nature allows it to be used in "mission-critical" applications like those instruments which are used in life-and-death kind of situations.

Compare this to a human brain for example. It is huge, stores a lot of information and is comparable to the personal computer that you use at office or home everyday. It can do great jobs, do a lot of analysis, picturise, and handle a lot of data and information. It has the storage area, the computing components and load-able data and software (and erasable too!).

Look at the PC carefully. It has the main chip to do the computing, a pre- recorded un-tamperable set of essential instructions which enables further instructions to be loaded. It is called the BIOS (the basic input-output system). This interfaces with the loaded software called the Operating system, which recognises the various parts and interfaces with them. Then you have a command processor, which translates what instructions you give and loads further software to do specific jobs. Along with this you have a designer GUI (the graphical user interface) which makes doing jobs and visualization easier. In essence the bios, the core of the operating system called the kernel, the part of the operating system which accepts your instructions and translates it for the machine to understand called the command processor, and the GUI which interfaces with it can be visualised to be in layers. The most repetitive and crucial jobs being almost hard-wired then a series of layers of software doing more complex jobs but more error prone distanced from the processor by a series of "intermediaries". The lower the layer, the faster it responds and acts.

Now come back to your zoology. We have the Spinal Chord and the Medulla oblongata doing the critical jobs and handling all the reflexes and involuntary actions. It is software which is hardwired, works repetitively, faultlessly and fast. Think of the cerebellum. It is close to the medulla oblongata, handles complex muscular controls (like the flight in birds) and works fast. It is like the command processor, accepting instructions and responding fast, relatively faultlessly. Then you have the huge cerebrum: Full of data, full of loaded software (the learnt things) and error prone. It cannot even retrieve data faultlessly and fast, all the time. We forget. Just like the personal computer which refused to work now and then.

In science, as elsewhere, we use simple analogies to help us understand ideas and concepts better. They are like simplified or poor replicas. They are called models and the process is called modelling.

Now where does this take us? Think of computer science and our understanding of the working of a personal computer as a model. The reality in nature which we are trying to model is the nervous system. Just imagine where we would all have been if we were taught zoology through our computers, but not just using computers. We would never have perhaps so strictly divided learning into rigid compartmentalised boxes called subjects.

In conclusion it can be said that an interest in any subject through a hobby involvement allows us to take non-traditional paths and get different views of many concepts.

　

E&OE, KRISHNA MB
making time free is culture!

How not to be dinosaurs in a botanic garden...

While on the usual Second Sunday group birdwatching outing to Lalbagh, I was asked by one of the participants for the oldest tree there. The collective opinion was that it was the lone surviving Mango tree dating back to the Hyder Ali – Tippu times. Just a couple of decades ago, there were four of them, and all but one died, leaving behind a blank open sunny space, in the very place that they once gave shade to. None were replaced immediately with a clone of the original, and to this day there is a blank, a symbolic vacancy in what should have been a treasured heritage.

For very many decades in the past, during the Commissioner and Princely days, Lalbagh was treated as a botanic garden, as a place of serious learning and collection of plants of both economic and novelty value. It has perhaps the oldest Sapota tree in Bangalore. It also has a couple of the only pines native to Southern India.

Those pines belong to a genus called Podocarpus, and were the only pines which survived the holocaust caused by one of the most violent volcanic eruptions this part of the world has ever seen. It was close to a couple of hundred million years ago and led largely to the extinction of the fauna and flora in India (the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary as the geologists call it). This event also led to the formation of the Deccan Traps. And in the higher reaches of the hills, these pines survived. With its deep green foliage (not needles!) these trees today lend a stately presence to the path that they grace.

But do we know about it? No! We literally see thousands of people at Lalbagh every day. Some jogging, some walking, most chatting. Hardly anybody is interested in what is around. They show no concern for the little plants that are meant to grow there. Not the grass, not the flower beds. There is no concern, no discipline. We have turned it in to a municipal-exercise park.

Maybe it is time for us to do a rethink and put a better value to the legacy that we have inherited. Seriously, maybe it is a time for us to take more pride in the heritage that we are part of. We just need to turn a botanic garden into a place it was meant to be, a place of learning!

[13-07-2008. Published in the Deccan Chronicle]

June 19th, 2012

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E&OE. KRISHNA MB.
making free time is culture!

A Botanic Garden for a Garden City? Really?

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E&OE,
KRISHNA MB.
making free time is culture!

Nandi Hills and its sought after Birdlife

Nandi Hills and its sought after Birdlife. Krishna MB. 26 March 2014.

Nandi hills stands out as a clear and distinct entity from the surrounding tableland landscape and this is striking when one looks at it from the air. For the birdwatcher or the wildlife photography enthusiast, Nandi hills provides a good representation of both wet and dry forest birds in an essentially dry table land. It is no wonder that the place is so popular with the people from Bangalore.

The birdlife of the wet and dry parts of peninsular India are quite distinct from one another, especially so if one considers the land birds. The forests and woodlands are are quite distinct too. Though there could be other areas like Bannerghatta where wet zone birds could occur in a predominantly dry zone landscape, none are accessible without hassles like Nandi hills. With its enhanced elevation, it provides a good scenery, a cool climate and a change from the hustle and bustle of Bangalore.

Nandi hills, as old photographs and art illustrations show, was originally clothed in scrubby vegetation like the surrounding landscape. It was perhaps around Lord Cubbon's time or thereafter that the structure and the composition of the vegetation changed drastically by intentional planting. Today we have a central valley here which is thickly wooded and harbours the much sought after wet zone bird species that birdwatchers and bird photographers so often seek.

Even for a keen birdwatching enthusiast, Nandi Hills provides  for a variety. The birds of the scrubby vegetation, the boulders and rocks around Nandi are much like what one would get around the landscape of Bangalore (or at least used to!). The Redwhiskered Bulbul and the Redvented Bulbul, both with bright red in their plumage, and the much more shy Whitebrowed Bulbul are small fruit eaters, that by their pleasant calls (especially the first two) add a very welcome cheer to the area they chose to be in. In the same group is the Yellow Browed Bulbul, a bird particularly restricted to the rock outcrops and the hills of the dry part of the peninsula.

Up in the air, we have a variety too. One of the fastest flying birds in the world, the Alpine Swift, and its close relative the desi House Swift occurs in Nandi. These are masters of the air, feeding on small airborne insects that get carried about by the wind. See these birds flying once, and you would never forget the speed of their flight! Another contender for the position of the fastest flying bird in the world is the Peregrine Falcon, which has a close relative here called the Shahin Falcon. Its dives are said to be spectacular!

On the canopies of trees, some of them quite tall at Nandi, one sees a variety of birds. There are fruit eating ones like the Small Green Barbet, the Coppersmith Barbet, the Golden Oriole, and the Nilgiri Wood Pigeon found in the canopy. These birds tend to congregate where fleshy fruits and the figs are found in abundance. A fig tree at Nandi should never be passed off without being given a good check.

Among the insect eating bird at Nandi, there are many with different lifestyles. There are birds which catch insects in the air, making frequent sallies from their perches on trees. The drongos are a characteristic example, and the Grey Drongo found at Nandi is a treat to watch. Down below in the air space under the canopy, it is a veritable bonanza for the birdwatcher! This is the space used by the flycatchers. The beautiful Paradise Flycatcher with a black head and an all white body in the older male, is spectacular. It has a very long ribbon like tail which draws a lot of ‘aahs’ from the photographer who has snapped it and a lot of ‘wow’s from the photographers who have not, when they look at others’ pictures! The deep blue and orange Tickell’s Flycatcher is not only a very beautiful bird, but is also a fine songster. The pale blue Verditer Flycatcher is unmistakable for its habit of moving on and not returning to the perch it took off from after a sally. The bright yellow Greyheaded Flycatcher has got an equally bright yellow gape… the part one sees when the mouth is opened. Catch it singing and not only can you see this bright coloration but also hear its melodious voice and calls. The large eyed Brown Flycatcher or the Redbreasted Flycatcher are found still lower down in sometimes at the level of shrubs in Nandi Hills.

The birds which feed on the insects amidst the leaf litter, are another speciality of Nandi. Hopping on the ground, the lower branches and twigs of the deep dark interior of the undergrowth, one can come across the thrushes. The thrushes are myna sized ground feeding birds which quietly fly into a tree and sit quietly, till the coast is clear for them to fly down to resume their feeding again! The male Blueheaded Rock Thrush is spectacular. It has got a black head, blue upperparts and orange underparts with two large white spots near the wing. This makes it look as if two large eyes are staring out at you from the gloaming dark, if you spy it from the back. The Orangebellied Ground Thrush is unmistakable, while the Pied Ground Thrush and the stream side preferring Whistling Thrush are rarer and a little more challenging to spot. The Magpie Robin is a fine songster, changing the tune it sings every morning. Maybe it conceives new tunes at night when it rests, but nevertheless it is a new tune you have every morning! The Blue Robin is another beauty worth looking out for at Nandi.

Overall, like many people feel, Nandi can never be disappointing to those who love our birdlife! Go there, observe from a good distance which does not alert or disturb the birds and you are all done!

//26 March 2014//

Not formally edited.

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E&OE,
KRISHNA MB.
making free time is culture!

Artificial Habitat Islands and Genetic Drift

In the in the early part of the ninteen hundreds, perhaps earlier than the twenties, as a part of a mosquito control public health programme, guppies and gambusia fishes were introduced in to the thousands of open wells that existed in the old Bangalore area. These open wells have no connection to one another. And the introduced populations in the different wells would have been isolated from one another genetically. One can also safely assume that homogenous stocks got introduced in to all these wells since they were procured from select fish breeders overseas.

Have been telling fellow biologists for decades that since genetic drift is so prevalent, the isolation provided by the wells should have led to divergence. Especially so since it is over a century and there would have been umpteen number of fish generations. It should be a ripe area to look into from a speciation point of view. But it seems to have not had any takers though!

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E&OE. KRISHNA MB.
making free time is culture!