Dr. Revathe Thillaikumar

I am a behavioural ecologist with an overarching research interest in understanding the development and evolution of sociality. In humans and other primates, highly social individuals have a higher reproductive success and survival, better health, and an increased ability to manage stressors than less social individuals. Individual characteristics and various socioecological factors seem to shape individual sociality. However, little is known about how sociality develops in an individual’s lifetime and how social structure is transmitted across generations. Most of the research on sociality comes out of primate studies, while equally interesting study systems with complex social organisation and structure remain largely understudied. I am, therefore, interested in understanding when and how sociality develops, the factors that influence individual sociality, how individuals pass down their social connections across generations, and finally the fitness consequences of sociality and social structure for individuals in a population in fission-fusion species.

During my ten years of research, I have been investigating female social structure, calf development, and allomaternal care in Asian elephants, formerly at Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research in India, and maternal investment and infant development in Sumatran orangutans at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior in Germany.