Biography
My research group uses an integrated approach to examine variation in, and relationships among, anatomical, morphological, and physiological traits in plants. The broader goal is to understand how coordination among leaf, stem, floral, and seed traits influences growth, survival, reproduction, and ultimately translates to species interactions, and distributions across environmental gradients.
A major focus of the current work is understanding how tropical forests will respond to ongoing and future climate change. In ongoing research across multiple sites in the peninsular India, we examine the physiological limits of tropical plants under heat and water stress, with the aim of understanding species vulnerability to warmer and drier condition. We test how temperature and drought tolerance are related to plant functional traits to better understand how the functional composition of tropical forests may shift under future climates. Other work in the group focuses on plant phenology, seed and floral traits in tropical forests, including monitoring of leafing, flowering, and fruiting. This tests how plant phenology and traits are linked to ecological strategies and plant–pollinator and seed disperser interactions in woody species.
