Qudsia Tahseen

Last updated

Qudsia Tahseen
Born (1964-12-15) 15 December 1964 (age 59)
NationalityIndian
Alma mater Aligarh Muslim University
Known for Nematology
Awardsfirst Asian to be awarded by Organisation of Nematologist of Tropical America (ONTA)
Scientific career
Fields Nematology, Classical & Molecular Taxonomy, Developmental Biology
Institutions Women's College, AMU
Aligarh Muslim University
Doctoral advisor M. Shamim Jairajpuri

Qudsia Tahseen (born 15 December 1964) is a Professor of Zoology at Aligarh Muslim University and teaches Animal Ecology as well as Nematology to the students of the Masters programme. Her areas of research include taxonomy and developmental biology of terrestrial and aquatic nematodes. [1] [2] Her thrust areas are Biodiversity, Taxonomy, Ecology and developmental biology of soil and fresh water nematodes. [3] She is a fellow of two national science academies of India. [4] [5]

Contents

Education

Qudsia Tahseen's schooling was from Azamgarh. From there, she moved on to pursue higher education in Zoology from Aligarh Muslim University. She completed her M.Sc. in Zoology in the year 1984 and was awarded a Gold Medal. She also pursued a Diploma in Statistics. She joined research in the Department of Zoology and completed her M.Phil in 1987 and Ph.D in 1989. [6]

Career

Qudsia Tahseen's first appointment as a faculty was in 1989 in Women's College AMU even before she had received the PhD degree. In 1997, she got transferred to the Department of Zoology, Aligarh Muslim University first serving as a Reader and then a full Professor. [6]

Research

She has been carrying out numerous studies on taxonomy, biodiversity, and biology of soil and aquatic nematodes resulting in discovery and description of several new species of Nematodes from India. [7] [8] [9] Most recently her group discovered an intermediate species between two different genera of Nematodes. [7] [10] In view of the scarcity of reports on these groups from India, she undertook the challenging task of exploring Indian habitats and made critical observations on the structure and morphology of free-living nematodes using LM and SEM. She has described and revised a good number of nematode taxa and has addressed the taxonomic identification from different perspectives so as to adopt a holistic approach combining morphological, developmental and ecological characteristics for better scientific value instead of the lopsided shallow morphological study. Her lucid and critical analyses of species supplemented with Scanning Electron Microscopic details were commended by peers and her wide taxonomic skills have been accredited internationally as she remains so far the only Asian to receive ONTA Special Award for sustained excellence in Nematology. She has also conducted pioneering studies in India on nematode development while her ecological findings led to the understanding of shifts in subterranean food web. Due to the skills and expertise, she has been invited to labs of Europe and America under fellowships of Royal Society, Rothamsted International, INSA, DBT, TWAS, TWOWS, Chinese Academy of Sciences, European Union Consortium, Australian Academy of Science etc. for collaborative research or to teach/ guide post-graduate students at Erasmus Mundus and EUMAINE programmes. [3]

Awards and honours

Qudsia Tahseen was the first Asian to receive the ONTA (Organization of Nematologists of Tropical America) Special Award in 2005 for sustained excellence in Nematology. She has been recognized for her accomplishments in the field with many reputed fellowships including [11] =

Her taxonomic skills have been credited in view of the diminishing taxonomists as she has been invited to reputed labs of Europe and America. [1]

Her biography has been included in “Lilawati’s Daughters ‐ Top Hundred Women Scientists of India” Published by the Indian Academy of Sciences. and in “The Girl’s Guide to a Life in Science” By Young Zubaan Publishers (One of the twenty three selected biographies of renowned Indian women scientists to encourage and incite young girls to opt for a science career); Editors: Ram Ramaswamy, Rohini Godbole and Mandakini Dubey (2011)

She was also mentioned in the “Noted Women Scientists of India – An Attempt at Enumeration” in Scilog (Germany) in association with nature.com and in Life, an e‐newsletter on Biological Sciences.

Books and other publications

Qudsia Tahseen has published a good number of research papers in leading international journals of the field viz., Nematology, Journal of Nematology, Hydrobiologia etc. [11] [1]

Related Research Articles

Pratylenchus brachyurus is a plant parasitic nematode.

<i>Anguina</i> (nematode) Genus of roundworms

Anguina is a genus of plant pathogenic nematodes.

Androdioecy is a reproductive system characterized by the coexistence of males and hermaphrodites. Androdioecy is rare in comparison with the other major reproductive systems: dioecy, gynodioecy and hermaphroditism. In animals, androdioecy has been considered a stepping stone in the transition from dioecy to hermaphroditism, and vice versa.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nematode</span> Phylum of worms

The nematodes, roundworms or eelworms constitute the phylum Nematoda. They are a diverse animal phylum inhabiting a broad range of environments. Most species are free-living, feeding on microorganisms, but many species are parasitic. The parasitic worms (helminths) are the cause of soil-transmitted helminthiases.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mermithidae</span> Family of roundworms

Mermithidae is a family of nematode worms that are endoparasites in arthropods. As early as 1877, Mermithidae was listed as one of nine subdivisions of the Nematoidea. Mermithidae are confused with the horsehair worms of the phylum Nematomorpha that have a similar life history and appearance.

Mohammad Shamim Jairajpuri was an Indian zoologist. He served as a professor and Chairman of the Zoology Department and Dean of the Faculty of Life Sciences at Aligarh Muslim University Aligarh before retirement in 2004. He received the first Janaki Ammal National Award bestowed by the Government of India, Ministry of Environment & Forests and Lifetime Achievement Award from the Zoological Society of India for his notable works on taxonomy of nematodes (1964–2004).

Michel Luc was a French zoologist (nematologist) and one of the founding fathers of the field of plant-nematology. He spent his career with ORSTOM, now IRD. He created the first French nematology laboratory in the ORSTOM research station of Adiopodoumé, near Abidjan in 1955, and a second nematology lab at Dakar Bel-Air (Senegal) in 1969. In 1978, he launched the Revue de Nématologie that fused with Nematologica in 1999 to become Nematology, currently the leading nematology journal in the field. He was a world-renowned authority on nematode taxonomy.

<i>Phasmarhabditis hermaphrodita</i> Species of roundworm

Phasmarhabditis hermaphrodita is a facultative parasitic nematode that can kill slugs and snails. It belongs to the family Rhabditidae, the same family as Caenorhabditis elegans.

Micoletzkya is a genus of predatory bark-beetle-associated nematodes in the family Diplogastridae. The genus was named for the Austrian nematologist Heinrich Micoletzky. As of 2013 it consists of 25 described species.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Diplogasteridae</span> Family of roundworms

Diplogastridae, formerly Diplogasteridae, are a family of nematodes (roundworms) known from a wide range of habitats, often in commensal or parasitic associations with insects.

Pristionchus maxplancki is a species of diplogastrid nematodes (roundworms).

Trichodoridae is a family of terrestrial root feeding nematodes, being one of two that constitute suborder Triplonchida. They are economically important plant parasites and virus vectors.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Diana Wall</span> American biologist (1943–2024)

Diana Harrison Wall was an American environmental scientist and soil ecologist. She was the founding director of the School of Global Environmental Sustainability, a distinguished biology professor, and senior research scientist at the Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory at Colorado State University. Wall investigated ecosystem processes, soil biodiversity and ecosystem services. Her research focused on the Antarctic McMurdo Dry Valleys and its Wall Valley was named after her. Wall was a globally recognized leader and speaker on life in Antarctica and climate change.

Caenorhabditis tropicalis is a species of Caenorhabditis nematodes, belonging to the Elegans super-group and Elegans group within the genus. It is a close relative of C. wallacei.C. tropicalis is collected frequently in tropical South America, Caribbean islands, and various islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans from rotting fruit, flowers and stems. C. tropicalis was referred to as "C. sp. 11" prior to 2014.

Myolaimidae is a family of nematodes in the order Rhabditida. It consists of two genera, Myolaimus and Deleyia.

<i>Protaetia aurichalcea</i> Species of beetle

Protaetia aurichalcea is a species of flower-chafer beetle in the family Scarabaeidae. It is found in Asia.

The Russian Journal of Nematology is a peer-reviewed scientific journal covering all aspects of studying nematodes. It was established in 1993 and is published by the Russian Society of Nematologists. The editors-in-chief are Roland Perry Sergei Subbotin and Sergei Spiridonov.

István Andrássy was a Hungarian nematologist. Starting with his first publication in 1952 on the nematode fauna of Mount Bükk, over his dissertation in 1973 on the evolution of nematodes to his last days he was a very prolific scientist, publishing more than 200 manuscripts, chapters and books on the class of Nematoda. He described 530 taxa of nematodes and at least 60 nematode taxa are named after him, which shows the huge respect he had in the nematologists world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Warwick L. Nicholas</span> English-born Australian parasitologist

Warwick Llewellyn Nicholas (1926–2010) was an Australian zoologist known as a pioneer in the field of nematology. He was a foundational member of the Australian Society for Parasitology (ASP) and in 1964, he organised the first ASP meeting. He became President of the Society in 1978, before being an elected Fellow from 1979.

May Belle Hutson Chitwood was an American author, nematologist, helminthologist, and zoologist at the Agricultural Research Service, curator of the National Parasite Collection, and director of the primate parasite registry at University of California at Davis. Chitwood specialized in the morphology of nematodes early in the research of this aspect of the species, and was considered a world authority. She published over 50 research papers about nematology, helminthology, and zoology.

References

  1. 1 2 3 "AMU Faculty Profile - Qudsia Tahseen" . Retrieved 22 March 2014.
  2. "Women in Science - Qudsia Tahseen" (PDF). Retrieved 16 July 2016.
  3. 1 2 "Aligarh Muslim University || Department Page". www.amu.ac.in. Retrieved 8 December 2019.
  4. "IAS Women Fellows" . Retrieved 16 July 2016.
  5. "NASI Fellows 2015" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 23 March 2016. Retrieved 16 July 2016.
  6. 1 2 "Qudsia Tehseen- CV" (PDF). Retrieved 16 July 2016.
  7. 1 2 Tahseen, Qudsia; Ahlawat, Shikha; Asif, Mohammad; Mustaqim, Malka (2016). "Description of a new species of Acrostichus Rahm 1928 (Nematoda: Diplogastridae) from India with a note on its position and relationship with the congeners". Biodiversity Data Journal. 4 (4): e8029. doi: 10.3897/BDJ.4.e8029 . PMC   4867705 . PMID   27226756.
  8. Tahseen, Q.; Khan, R.; Ahlawat, S. (2015). "Description of new species of Pterygorhabditis Timm, and Aspidonema (Sachs, ) Andrássy, (Nematoda: Bunonematoidea) in aquatic habitats from India". Journal of Helminthology. 90 (4): 398–409. doi:10.1017/S0022149X15000462. PMID   26212762. S2CID   28244377.
  9. Asif, M.; Prasad, J.S.; Khan, R.; Somasekhar, N.; Tahseen, Q. (2013). "A revision of the genus Metarhabditis(Nematoda: Rhabditidae) with description of three known species, a key to the identification of congeners and discussion of their relationships". Journal of Natural History. 47 (41–42): 2599. Bibcode:2013JNatH..47.2599A. doi:10.1080/00222933.2013.798702. S2CID   85199992.
  10. "A new roundworm species from India is a link between 2 genera". EurekAlert!. 13 April 2016. (referring in turn to Tahseen, Ahlawat, Asif, Mustaqim, 2016)
  11. 1 2 Tahseen, Qudsia (October 2018). "Qudsia Tahseen CV as of Oct 2018" (PDF). amu.ac.in.