ZOOLOGY

The Department encompasses a wide range of research areas encircling broadly the ‘diversity’ of animal life. The unifying theme is nothing but ‘evolution’, the solitary process that triggers all of the diversity of life. Research in the Department of Zoology is broadly based around the basic themes, which span all levels of the study of animal life, from cellular and molecular biology to whole organism topics in behavioural ecology and conservation. The themes of research are—

• Anatomy or morphology; 
• Biochemistry and molecular biology;
• Cell biology;
• Developmental studies (embryology);
• Ecology and ethology;
• Evolution and genetics;
• Physiology; immunology;
• Endocrinology & reproductive biology,
• Hydrobiology,
• Classicalentomology,
• Insect pest management,
• Systematic  and region based IPM strategies.

Thrust area of Research in the Departments/ Programmes:

Researches in a number of areas are going on in the department to unravel the mystery of natural science giving due importance on inter-disciplinary approach—

• Characterization, Documentation, Ecological settings and systematization of local faunal diversity with an emphasis on their economic utility and ecological significance
• Assessment on Meta-community  in relation to zooplankton and avian diversity.
• Experimentation on Limnology, Hydrobiology, Aquatic Toxicology and Aquaculture   related matter.                                 
• Strategies to conserve regionally threatened organisms either by in-situor ex-situ conservation after modulating their behavioural activity.
• Improvement of the existing strategy for the bio-prospecting of regional animal resources for production of commercial product.
• Eco-toxicological screening of aquatic systems using fish and zooplankton as indicator.
• Community structure and interactions of zooplankton population in relation to trophic status of limnetic systems – Impact of predation, competition, relative abundance, community structure, community composition in relation to resource utilization, cross compared between trophic systems.
• Analysis of key ecosystem services and biodiversity components in socio-ecological platform of the Northern parts of West Bengal especially the Testa-Terai
• Research on inflammatory and degenerative diseases in view of inflammation and degeneration, using in vitroand in vivo approaches will be designed in future. Drug discovery studies will be designed in future using natural products and their extracts, using stem cells, using a novel technology of antibody therapy, and also using probiotics organisms.
• Exploration of bioactive compounds of the potential regional plants to study the relative anti-oxi-flammatory activities.
• Characterization of ‘model organisms’ and ecosystems to narrate gradient of ecological disturbance due to urbanization.
• Insect-plant interaction in relation to the agricultural landscape of West Bengal. Assessment of periodicity of field insect pests aiming to design insect pest forecasting equation. Furthermore the importance of crop phenology and biochemistry on insect pest incidence is given importance.