Chiti arvind
Research Associate
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RESEARCH INTERESTS
My research sits at the interface of behavioural ecology and evolutionary biology, with a particular focus on avian vocal signaling. This interest took root during early summer projects with the POBE program at JNCASR, Bangalore, and the Khorana Scholars Program at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Panama. It sharpened further during my Master's at Imperial College London, where my thesis examined the evolution of birdsong complexity in suboscine Passeriformes — work that led me to join the Bird Lab at IISER Tirupati to continue in bioacoustics. As a Prime Minister’s Research Fellow, my PhD examined birdsong variation and genetic population structure in the White-bellied Sholakili (WBS), a bird endemic to the Shola Sky Islands of the Western Ghats. One of the more striking features of this species is the complexity of its repertoire, which we quantified using newly devised metric built on spectrogram cross-correlation. My work explored whether differences in song and gene flow across the species' distribution are shaped by environmental gradients and land-use change, and I experimentally tested behavioural responses to local versus non-local songs through playback experiments. Alongside this focal-recording work, I used passive acoustic monitoring and AI/ML approaches to study singing phenology across one of the Sky Islands, linking singing activity to the breeding cycle in a landscape marked by an asynchrony in precipitation. Beyond my focal PhD work, I co-wrote two National Geographic Society grants: one testing the "anthropause" in natural and urban soundscapes across seven Indian cities using automated recording units, and another examining connectivity patterns for endemic birds in the Shola Sky Islands amid the spread of invasive timber plantations. Earlier in my career, a Wildlife Conservation Trust Small Grant supported my work developing a detection framework using passive acoustic recorders for the Critically Endangered Jerdon's Courser, endemic to the foothills of the Eastern Ghats in Andhra Pradesh. More on my path into ornithology and ongoing research can be found at ornithology.in, The Kodai Chronicle, and on BBC Sounds. I build tools as much as I ask questions — from automated detection frameworks for the Critically Endangered Jerdon's Courser to custom BirdNET classifiers for species with complex songs — and have co-conducted bioacoustics workshops that have trained 50+ researchers. Teaching has run alongside my research throughout (300+ hours across five institutions, from undergraduate ecology to graduate conservation genetics), through online courses in Wildlife Ecology and Basics in Ornithology, in-person teaching, and managing our long-term field station in Kodaikanal for our summer internship program. I've also co-supervised students and MS thesis projects that have sent mentees on to further studies within and outside India. Beyond the lab, I enjoy writing popular science (Research Matters) and engaging young students with ongoing research in the field, including through Teach For India – Mumbai, via WonderGirls. Projects Involved: Sholakili Song Diversity, Jerdon's Courser, Avian Malaria PERSONAL AND OTHER INTERESTS
I love to backpack, explore uncommon places and try out new cuisines (it's always all about the food). When not on the move, one can find me experimenting in the kitchen, primarily baking, which relies more on intuition rather than measures. I also enjoy maintaining a green space at home. I'd love to swim on a regular basis but in the absence of a waterbody I enjoy badminton. 
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PUBLICATIONS (* mentees)
Peer-reviewed
Pre-print
Peer-reviewed
- Yang J., Arvind C., Barber R.A., Johnson O., O’Brien K., Stanley R., Bravo G.A., Buck E.J., Claramunt S., Brumfield R. T., Harvey M. G., Derryberry E. P. & Tobias, J. A. (2026) Song complexity in suboscine birds: evolutionary drivers and ecological constraints. Proc Biol Sci. 293 (2071): 20260429. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2026.0429
- Arunima, J.*, Arvind, C., Jobin, V., Lele, A., & Robin, V. V. (2026). Changes in habitat connectivity for range-restricted birds reflect patterns of woodland invasion. Biological Conservation, 317, 111800. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2026.111800
- Vinay, K. L., Goyal, N., Warudkar, A., Arvind, C., & Robin, V. V. (2026). Genome assemblies for seven families of birds from the Global South. Molecular Ecology Resources (Accepted)
- Vinay K. L., Arvind C., Goyal N., Robin V. V. (2025) High-quality genome assembly of the endemic, threatened, White-bellied Sholakili Sholicola albiventris (Muscicapidae: Blanford, 1868) from the Shola Sky Islands, India, Journal of Heredity; esaf049, https://doi.org/10.1093/jhered/esaf049
- Arvind, C., Joshi, V., Charif, R., Jeganathan, P., & Robin, V. (2022). Species detection framework using automated recording units: A case study of the Critically Endangered Jerdon's courser. Oryx, 1-8. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0030605321000995
- Sawant, S*., Arvind, C., Joshi, V., & Robin, V. V. (2022). Spectrogram cross-correlation can be used to measure the complexity of bird vocalizations. Methods in Ecology and Evolution, 00, 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1111/2041-210X.13765
- Sarangi M, Ganguly P, Zenia, Arvind C, Lakshman A, Vidya TNC (2014) Common Myna roosts are not recruitment centres. PloS One 9: e103406. http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0103406
Pre-print
- Arvind, C., Sawant, S., Srinivasan, R., G.P. Arpitha, Goyal, N., Warudkar, A. & V. V., Robin. (2025). Distinct, asynchronous processes underlie cultural and genetic variation in a bird species with complex song repertoires. bioRxiv, 2025-11. https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.11.02.684965
- Sawant, S*., Arvind, C., Joshi, V., Dutta, I., & Robin, V. V. (2025). Linguistic Rules of Syntax and Sharing in the Complex Songs of a Tropical Passerine. bioRxiv, 2025-07. doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.07.31.666818
- Kahl, S., Denton, T., Klinck, H., Ramesh, V., Joshi, V., Srivathsa, M., Anand, A., Arvind, C., Cp, Harikrishnan, Sawant, S. and VV, Robin, 2024, September. Overview of BirdCLEF 2024: Acoustic identification of under-studied bird species in the Western Ghats. In Conference and Labs of the Evaluation Forum (CLEF 2024) (pp. 1948-1957). CEUR-WS.
- Warudkar, A., Gayathri, R., Arvind, C., Ishtiaq, F., Dharmarajan, G., & Robin, V. V. (2025). Host niche breadth differentially modulates the effects of anthropogenic disturbance across generalist and specialist parasites. bioRxiv, 2025-05. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.05.11.653240
- Sawant, S.*, Arvind, C., Joshi, V., & Robin, V. V. (2021). Song Richness Index: A measure to understand the diversity and repetition of notes in a birdsong. bioRxiv. https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.12.18.472638
