Raghavendra Gadagkar

Who is Raghavendra Gadagkar?

Raghavendra Gadagkar is a full professor at the Centre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, India, who studies evolution using eusocial insects. For most of his works, he uses Ropalidia marginata, a commonly found paper wasp, as study system.

Gadagkar has published over 250 scientific papers and articles in international journals as well as in Indian journals like Current Science magazine, and the Journal of Biosciences, both published from Bangalore. His most important contribution to the field of evolution of eusociality is the theory of "assured fitness returns" which has been verified from empirical data and can be considered as a significant landmark in this field since the seminal work done by W. D. Hamilton in 1964. Over the last three decades he has established an active research group that has contributed towards understanding the proximate and ultimate factors of social evolution in wasps. Some of his opinionated articles on science policy have been controversial, such as his exception to the pay to publish, free to read Open Access science publishing model.

His first book, Survival Strategies, has been translated into Chinese and Korean. It uses simple language to explain recent advances in behavioural ecology and sociobiology to a general audience.