India’s insects: Disappearing in plain sight?
A thoughtful feature by Nandita Jayaraj on India’s insect biodiversity, conservation and the urgent need to pay attention to small lives.
About MOTH Lab
A lab for insects, movement and environmental change.
We are an interdisciplinary research group interested in the hidden biodiversity that moves through forests, mountains, farms and skies.
Our work →
Our research pillars
From moth wings to weather systems.
MOTH Lab studies biodiversity using methods that move between natural history, quantitative ecology, remote sensing and computation.
01
Insect biodiversity
We study moth diversity, community assembly and ecological strategies across Himalayan landscapes, elevation gradients and changing habitats.
02
Traits and colour
We measure morphology, wing architecture, colour and pattern to understand how insect phenotypes respond to environments and interactions.
03
Aerial movement
We use weather radar and atmospheric data to examine how insects enter, move through and structure the lower atmosphere.
04
Data and AI
We build computational tools for image processing, feature extraction and scalable biodiversity monitoring.
MOTH Lab in the field
Himalayan landscapes as living laboratories.
In our group, field ecology begins with close attention to place. Mountain forests, elevational gradients and seasonal transitions offer powerful natural experiments for understanding insect diversity.
We study how moth communities vary across landscapes, how colour and wing traits respond to ecological pressures, and how environmental gradients shape the organisms that often remain invisible in conventional monitoring.
Field-based research →
MOTH Lab in the sky
Radar ecology for a moving planet.
Weather radar networks can detect more than rain. They also record biological movement: insects, birds and other organisms moving through the atmosphere.
At MOTH Lab, we repurpose radar observations to study aerial insect abundance, nocturnal emergence, seasonal movement and the influence of wind, rain and monsoon dynamics on life in the air.
Radar ecology →
Our approach
Connecting detail with scale.
We at MOTH Lab are interested in ecological processes that are too small, too numerous, too fast or too high in the atmosphere to observe easily.
Our work connects the fine-scale details of individual organisms — wing geometry, colour, pattern and morphology — with broader patterns of movement, climate, landscapes and biodiversity change.
This means combining fieldwork, imaging, environmental data, radar archives and computational models into one research programme.
About the Lab
MOTH Lab is led by Mansi Mungee, an ecologist working at the intersection of biodiversity science, remote sensing and artificial intelligence.
The group focuses on insects because they are central to ecosystem functioning, yet remain among the least visible components of biodiversity monitoring. Our research asks how new technologies can help reveal their diversity, traits and movement across changing environments.
Across our projects, we aim to build a research culture that is field-based, computationally rigorous, collaborative and visually rich — a lab where moths, maps, radars, images and ecological questions meet.
Latest from MOTH Lab
In the news.
Media coverage, documentaries, research stories and public writing on insects, biodiversity, radar ecology, technology and conservation.
Article
Research
What radar can reveal about insect movement
BioDAR is a team of brilliant, motivated scientists creating a step-change in the way we monitor biodiversity using weather radar and atmospheric data.
Documentary
Nocturnes
Nocturnes is an award-winning documentary by Metamorphosis Film Junction following our field research on Himalayan moths in collaboration with IISER Pune.
Media Coverage
Weather radar reveals insect movement over the UK
Our radar work with team BioDAR used UK Met Office weather radar data to reveal massive aerial insect biomass and concerning declines in night-flying insects.
Collaborate with MOTH Lab
Curious about insects, movement or environmental change?
We are always interested in conversations with students, researchers, conservation practitioners, remote sensing scientists and anyone excited by the hidden life of the air.
Get in touch →