A half-century journey into primatology and wildlife biology with Professor Mewa Singh

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This episode of The PrimateCast: Origins is taken from CICASP's International Primatology Lecture Series: Past, Present and Future Perspectives of the Field.
The IPLS is dedicated to providing origin stories told by experienced researchers in primatology and related fields. The lectures are conducted via Zoom within our CICASP Seminar in Science Communication for graduate students of our program at Kyoto University. We are releasing the audio from these lectures right here on The PrimateCast: Origins.
For anyone interested in viewing the video versions of these lectures, head over to the CICASP TV YouTube channel, where you can also watch them live as we stream our Zoom feeds there.
For the 12th international primatology lecture we invited distinguished professor Dr. Mewa Singh to share his origin story with us. This lecture took place on May 25, 2022.
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"One need not have a formal degree in a discipline, to become a specialist in that discipline"
-Mewa Singh, 2022
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Dr. Mewa Singh is Life-Long Distinguished Professor in the Department of Psychology and Institute of Excellence at the University of Mysore. Throughout his career he has investigated the behavior and ecology of mammals, most notably primates, and has been heavily invested in their conservation and management in different regions throughout India.
In this lecture, he describes his activities related to the conservation of primates in India, particularly through distinctions between forest-dependent species and others that are more adaptable to human-dominated landscapes. He then describes various behavioral adaptations that have allowed more commensal macaque species to thrive in urban settings.
Key topics that come up are:

• genetic diversity in lion-tailed macaques with respect to habitat fragmentation
• protecting habitat and regrowing wildlife corridors with rainforest trees
• primate commensalism and behavioral plasticity in urban environments
• acquisition of novel foraging strategies as adaptations to extracting human resources

He begins the lecture talking about how he became a wildlife biologist and primatologist, and that it wasn't exactly a straight line or so predetermined from a young age. And he closes with some further advice about studying primates ethically in human landscapes.
In between, he provides numerous pieces of advice and bits of wisdom that will no doubt have value for all listeners.
Enjoy!.

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The PrimateCast is hosted and produced by Andrew MacIntosh. Artwork by Chris Martin. Music by Andre Goncalves. Credits by Kasia Majewski.

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