Current research in the lab is grouped around the following broad themes that examine

• How interactions and feedbacks between climate, biogeochemistry, fires and herbivory influence the structure, composition and stability of ecosystems and the cycling and sequestration of nutrients.

• How projected changes in climate such as increasing variability of rainfall, increased frequency of droughts, increasing aridity in the tropics, nitrogen and phosphorus deposition and rising carbon-dioxide will impact ecosystem function, stability and services.
  
  Most of our research has been carried out in grasslands and savanna ecosystems. We are now extending this work to encompass a wider range of ecosystem types including wet and dry forests across India. Our current and planned future work will employ both long and short-term experiments, as well as targeted field surveys to address the above questions across the gamut of natural ecosystem types of the Indian sub-continent, with the goal of bringing a comprehensive understanding of biome-scale vegetation and nutrient dynamics in the sub-continent.

Latest news!

• 
  

• 26.11.2025: New Publication. Rohit, Jayashree and Mahesh published a paper in Journal of Vegetation Science.
  https://doi.org/10.1111/jvs.70089 

• 01.11.2025: New Publication. Hansraj, Abhirami and Mahesh published a paper in Royal Society Open Science.
  https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.250939

• 01.11.2025: Anish has joined University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. Congratulations and all the best!

• 26.09.2025: Mukta was awarded the National Post-Doctoral Fellowship!!!

• 25.09.2025: Aayush, Dev and Lakshmi presented posters at SCCS, Bengaluru, and Aayush received the best poster award.

• 17.09,2025: Mahesh was awarded the J.C. Bose Grant 2025 by the Anusandhan National Research Foundation.

• 21.07.2025: PhDone. Mukta successfully defended her PhD Thesis titled "Distribution, Trait Variation and Drought Tolerance of C4
  Grasses Across Climatic Gradients in India".

• 20.08.2025: New Publication. Mahesh was a co-author on a paper in Ecological Applications. https://doi.org/10.1002/eap.70087

• 28.07.2025: New Publication. Dayani, Raghavendra, Jayashree and Mahesh published a paper in Journal of Tropical Ecology.
  https://doi.org/10.1017/S0266467425100126

• 22.07.2025: New Publication. Aparna, Jayashree and Mahesh were co-authors in a paper in Journal of Biosciences.
  https://doi.org/10.1007/s12038-025-00537-z

• 21.07.2025: PhDone. Dayani successfully defended her PhD Thesis titled "Effect of rainfall variability on the carbon cycle in South-
  Asian forests and savannas".

• 10.07.2025: New Publication. Mukta, Jayashree and Mahesh published a paper in Global Ecology and Conservation.
  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gecco.2025.e03741