A deeper understanding of the role of multiple ecological processes that determine tree diversity in species-rich forests. We have worked on a wide range of tropical forests sites including lowland and montane forests, and moist to dry forests in multiple sites in India and abroad. These processes include negative density dependent effects of seed predators and pathogens, resource competition for soil nutrients, habitat heterogeneity, dispersal limitation, and stochasticity.
Quantifying the importance of these processes remains an important area of research in ecology. Our results published in PNAS-USA, Proc. Roy. Soc. Ser B London, Ecology Letters, J. of Ecology, Functional Ecology, Oecologia, J. of Vegetation Science, Plant Ecology, Journal of Plant Ecology. Scientific Reports, Plant Soil, and chapters in publishing houses of Cambridge, Chicago, and Blackwell have contributed to this important effort.
More recently, we have started working on life-history variation within and among populations of tropical deciduous forest tree species that are widely distributed across climatic gradients in central India.