About the Authors

Raja Ponnuchamy

Affiliations Department of Ecology, French Institute of Pondicherry, UMIFRE 21 CNRS-MAEE/USR 3330, Pondicherry, India, Department of Botany, Kanchi Mamunivar Centre for Post-Graduate Studies, Pondicherry, India

Vincent Bonhomme

Current address: School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Sheffield, Sheffield, United Kingdom; Centre de Bio-Archéologie et d'Ecologie, UMR 5059 Université de Montpellier II/CNRS/EPHE, Montpellier, France

Affiliation Department of Ecology, French Institute of Pondicherry, UMIFRE 21 CNRS-MAEE/USR 3330, Pondicherry, India

Srinivasan Prasad

Affiliation Department of Ecology, French Institute of Pondicherry, UMIFRE 21 CNRS-MAEE/USR 3330, Pondicherry, India

Lipi Das

Affiliation Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education, Pondicherry, India

Prakash Patel

Affiliation Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education, Pondicherry, India

Cédric Gaucherel

Affiliation Department of Ecology, French Institute of Pondicherry, UMIFRE 21 CNRS-MAEE/USR 3330, Pondicherry, India

Arunachalam Pragasam

Affiliation Department of Botany, Kanchi Mamunivar Centre for Post-Graduate Studies, Pondicherry, India

Krishnamurthy Anupama

anupama.k@ifpindia.org

Affiliation Department of Ecology, French Institute of Pondicherry, UMIFRE 21 CNRS-MAEE/USR 3330, Pondicherry, India

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: KA PP LD SP. Performed the experiments: RP LD SP. Analyzed the data: RP SP KA VB. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: LD PP AP VB. Wrote the paper: RP KA VB SP. Research design of statistics: VB RP. Critical review and suggestions: CG.