Natasha Mhatre

Natasha Mhatre is a researcher in Canada at Western University whose research focuses on animal communication. Focusing on insect biomechanics, she is an assistant professor and NSERC Canada Research Chair in invertebrate neurobiology.

Education
Mhatre earned her Bachelor of Science from Mumbai University in 1999, and her Master of Science and doctorate from the Indian Institute of Science in 2002 and 2008, respectively.

Research
Mhatre's work has covered insect communication and biomechanics. Some of her research has been focused on Black Widow spiders, and she has been called a "Tree cricket Expert". Her work has had applications beyond spiders and insects to Tuvan throat singers, where she collaborated with a group to investigate how unique sounds were produced.

Mhatre holds an NSERC Canada Research Chair, and was a recipient of the Marie Curie Fellowship to support her post doctoral research.

The Otomi tree cricket Oecanthus mhatreae was named in her.

Publications

 * 1) (2021) Erin Brandt, Yoshan Sasiharan, Damian O. Elias, Natasha Mhatre. Jump takeoff in a small jumping spider. J. Comp. Physiol. A, 207, pages 153–164.
 * 2) (2020) Christopher Bergevin, Chandan Narayan, Joy Williams, Natasha Mhatre, Jennifer Steeves, Joshua GW Bernstein, and Brad Story. Overtone focusing in biphonic Tuvan throat singing. 2020;9:e50476.
 * 3) (2020) Christopher Bergevin, Andrew Mason, and Natasha Mhatre. Evidence supporting synchrony between two active ears due to interaural coupling. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. 147(1), EL25.
 * 4) (2018) Penghui Sun, Natasha Mhatre, Andrew Mason, and Jayne Yack. In that vein: inflated wing veins contribute to butterfly hearing. Biology Letters. 14(10) 20180496.
 * 5) (2018) Natasha Mhatre. Tree cricket baffles are manufactured tools. Ethology.124(9),691-693;
 * 6) (2018) Natasha Mhatre and Daniel Robert. The drivers of heuristic optimization in insect object manufacture and use. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 1015;
 * 7) (2017) Natasha Mhatre*, Robert Malkin*, Rittik Deb*, Rohini Balakrishnan, and Daniel Robert. Tree crickets optimize the acoustics of baffles to exaggerate their mate-attraction signal. eLife, 6:e32763 DOI: 10.7554/eLife.32763. * contributed equally
 * 8) (2016) Natasha Mhatre, Gerald Pollack, and Andrew Mason. Stay tuned: active amplification tunes tree cricket ears to track temperature-dependent song frequency. Biology Letters. DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2016.0016, 12(4), 20160016.
 * 9) (2015) Natasha Mhatre. Active amplification in insect ears: mechanics, models and molecules Journal of Comparative Physiology A. DOI: 10.1007/s00359-014-0969-0 201(1), 19-37 (Invited review).
 * 10) (2014) Robert Malkin*, Thomas R. McDonagh*, Natasha Mhatre*, Thomas S. Scott & Daniel Robert. Energy localisation and frequency analysis in the locust ear. Journal of the Royal Society Interface. 11(90), 20130857. *contributed equally.
 * 11) (2013) Natasha Mhatre and Daniel Robert. A tympanal insect ear exploits a critical oscillator for active amplification and tuning. Current Biology. 23(19), 1952-1957.
 * 12) (2013) K. Rajaraman, Natasha Mhatre, M. Jain, M. Postles, R. Balakrishnan and D. Robert. Lowpass filters and differential tympanal tuning in a paleotropical bushcricket with an unusually low frequency call. Journal of Experimental Biology. 216, 777-787.
 * 13) (2012) Natasha Mhatre, F. Montealegre-Z, R. R. Balakrishnan, D. Robert. Changing resonator geometry to boost sound power decouples size and song frequency in a small insect. PNAS. 109(22) E1444-E1452, [Cover: Issue 22, May 29 2012]
 * 14) (2011) Natasha Mhatre, M. Bhattacharya, R. Balakrishnan, D. Robert. Matching sender and receiver: poikilothermy and frequency tuning in a tree cricket. Journal of Experimental Biology. 214, 2569-2578.
 * 15) (2009) Natasha Mhatre, F. Montealegre-Z, R. Balakrishnan, D. Robert. Mechanical response of the tympanal membranes of the tree cricket Oecanthus henryi (Orthoptera: Gryllidae: Oecanthinae). Journal of Comparative Physiology A. 195(5): 453-462.
 * 16) (2008) Natasha Mhatre and R. Balakrishnan. Predicting acoustic orientation in complex realworld environments. Journal of Experimental Biology. 211:2779-2785.
 * 17) (2007) Natasha Mhatre and R. Balakrishnan. Phonotactic walking paths of field crickets in closed-loop conditions and their simulation using a stochastic model. Journal of Experimental Biology. 210:3661-3676.
 * 18) (2006) Natasha Mhatre and R. Balakrishnan. Male spacing behaviour and acoustic interactions in a field cricket: implications for female mate choice. Animal Behaviour. 72:1045-1058.
 * 19) (2004) S. Namboori, Natasha Mhatre, S. Sujatha, N. Srinivasan and S. B. Pandit Enhanced functional and structural domain assignments using remote similarity detection procedures for proteins encoded in the genome of Mycobacterium tuberculosis H37Rv. Journal of Biosciences. 29(3): 245-59.
 * 20) (2002) S. B. Pandit, D. Gosar, S. Abhiman, S. Sujatha, S. S. Dixit, Natasha S. Mhatre, R. Sowdhamini and N. Srinivasan. SUPFAM—a database of potential protein superfamily relationships derived by comparing sequence-based and structure-based families: implications for structural genomics and function annotation in genomes. Nucleic Acids Research. 30(1): 289-293.