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Amrita Srivathsan Evolutionary Biology Laboratory Blk S2 #02-01 +65 6515 2968 (Tel) |
| Education | |
| 2010 - Present | Ph.D. candidate in Department of Biological Sciences, NUS and Department of Life Sciences, Imperial College London |
| 2006 - 2010 | B.Sc. (Hons) in Life Sciences (National University of Singapore) |
| Research Interests | |
| I am interested in metagenomic techniques to understand ecology of a species. I am also interested in molecular methods of species identification and related bioinformatics. |
Research Projects |
| The banded leaf monkey is critically endangered in Singapore and little is known about its ecology. With next generation sequencing technology, I am interested in answering questions on ecology of this species. I particularly focus on the feeding ecology. I would like to use the sequences obtained from DNA in the fecal samples to understand the diet of the monkey. For this, we need to build a library of the species present in its habitat. As such, my current work focuses on the DNA barcoding of the trees and climbers present in its habitat in Singapore.
I am also interested in identifying molecular markers for DNA barcoding in plants and exploring different methods of analyses. Currently I am working on DNA barcoding of Phalaenopsis, an orchid genus. For my honours thesis, I studied the evolution of the genes related to audition in primates and in particular genes related to the function of inner ear. I used methods for phenotype-genotype correlations and analysed whether frequency of hearing is correlated with genetic evolution. |
Publications |
| Ang A., Srivathsan A., Md.-Zain B.M., Ismail M. R. B., Meier R. (2012). Low genetic variability in the recovering urban banded leaf monkey population of Singapore. The Raffles Bulletin of Zoology 60(2): 589–594.
Kwong S, Srivathsan A, Meier R. In press. An update on DNA barcoding: low species coverage and numerous unidentified sequences Cladistics DOI: 10.1111/j.1096-0031.2012.00408.x Kwong S, Srivathsan A, Vaidya G, Meier R. 2012. Is the COI barcoding gene involved in speciation through intergenomic conflict? Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 62(3): 1009-1012. Srivathsan A, Meier R. 2012. On the inappropriate use of Kimura-2-parameter (K2P) divergences in the DNA-barcoding literature. Cladistics 28(2): 190-194. |
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| Selected Grants, Fellowships and Awards | |
| 2012 - Present | President's Gradutate Fellowship |
| 2010 - 2012 | NUS Research Scholarship |
| 2010 | NUS University Scholars Programme (USP) President’s Honour Roll |
| 2010 | NUS University Scholars Programme (USP) Senior Honour Roll |
| 2009 | NUS University Scholars Programme (USP) Honour Roll |
| 2008 | NUS University Scholars Programme (USP) Study and Research Grant |
| 2006 - 2010 | University Scholar, National University of Singapore |
| 2006 | Merit Certificate in Biology, CBSE, India |
Conferences |
| Shekelle, M., Salim, A. and Srivathsan, A. (2009, Sep). Correlation of primate species richness and rainfall facilitates GIS modeling of the effects of global warming on primate species richness capacity. Oral presentation (by M. Shekelle) at the Thirty-second Meeting of American Society of Primatologists, San Diego, USA.
Shekelle, M., Salim, A. and Srivathsan, A. (2009, Apr). Asian primate species richness correlates with rainfall using GIS modeling. Oral presentation (by M. Shekelle) at the Seventy-eighth Annual Meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists, Chicago, USA. Srivathsan, A., Salim, A. and Shekelle, M. (2008, Aug). Southeast Asian primate species richness correlates linearly with rainfall using GIS modeling. Oral presentation at the International Primatological Society XXII Congress, Edinburgh, UK. |
Teaching Experience |
| 2011 | Teaching Assistant, LSM4254: Principles of Taxonomy and Systematics, Semester 1, AY2011/12, NUS |
| 2010 | Teaching Assistant, ULS2202: Evolution, Semester 1, AY2010/11, NUS |
Last updated: October 10, 2012