Divya Bellur Uma
Faculty Member
Liberal Studies
Azim Premji University
India
Biography
Divya is broadly interested in predator-prey interactions, evolution and maintenance of deception and camouflage in arthropods, and monitoring biodiversity of Indian spiders and insects. She was a postdoctoral fellow at Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Trivandrum before joining Azim Premji University. While working at IISER, she studied the presence of personalities in social spiders; and ant mimicry in insects and spiders. Her areas of interests are Animal communication; sensory ecology; mimicry; plant-animal interactions; teaching pedagogy; alternative styles of teaching.
Research Interest
Predator-prey interactions; mimicry and camouflage in plants and animals
Publications
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Uma DB, Weiss MR. Flee or fight: ontogenetic changes in the behavior of cobweb spiders in encounters with spider-hunting wasps. Environmental entomology. 2012 Dec 1;41(6):1474-80.
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Durkee CA, Weiss MR, Uma DB. Ant mimicry lessens predation on a North American jumping spider by larger salticid spiders. Environmental entomology. 2011 Oct 1;40(5):1223-31.
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Uma D, Durkee C, Herzner G, Weiss M. Double deception: ant-mimicking spiders elude both visually-and chemically-oriented predators. PloS one. 2013 Nov 13;8(11):e79660.
