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Pollination ecology | Floral trait evolution | Behavioural ecology
My interests lie in studying plant-pollination ecology at population and community levels. I also like to study pollinators' foraging behaviour, how it has evolved, and how it affects floral trait variation. I use a combination of field experiments, molecular tools and statistical modelling to address questions such as:
What is the functional importance of intra-specific trait variation in plants, and how does it affect plant-plant and plant-insect interactions?
How do plant–plant and plant-insect interactions shape the diversity of floral traits within and between species?
How do environmental parameters and plant–plant and plant-insect interactions affect the flowering phenology of a population and community?
Below are my current and past research projects.
Intraspecific variations in floral traits
Intraspecific variations in floral traits
Floral colour polymorphism (link to manuscript)
Floral polymorphism is the presence of two or more floral morphs (or forms), which can be distinguished by variations in their morphology or other floral characteristics. My research presents a holistic approach to understanding the maintenance of floral colour polymorphism (FCP) in a species that has not been previously reported. The approach can be broadly divided into three main parts: the ‘what’, ‘how’, and ‘why’ of FCP.
Firstly, I address the question ‘What are the morphs?’ to identify and distinguish discrete colour morphs from continuous colour variants. Secondly, I explore ‘How are the morphs different from each other?’ to study variations in other morphological and associated ecological/physiological traits. Finally, the ultimate question, ‘how are the morphs maintained in a population?’ is examined to understand the selection regimes contributing to the maintenance of FCP. This work is part of my PhD thesis and is supported by a student grant from Heliconia Society International (HSI).
Pollinator behavioural ecology
Pollinator behavioural ecology
Can pollinators discriminate between polymorphic flowers? (manuscript in preparation)
One of the significant questions in the evolutionary ecology of pollination is how pollinators respond to intra-specific variations in floral traits. With the help of carefully planned choice experiments, we have examined the hawkmoths’ response to various combinations of floral colour, nectar volume, and nectar concentrations.
Findings suggest that nocturnal hawkmoths can distinguish between polymorphic flowers. Hawkmoths demonstrated the ability to discriminate floral reward (both nectar volume and nectar concentration) as well as floral colours. We also found that Hawkmoths' assessment of colour and nectar rewards is subjective in nature and is highly context-dependent. This work is part of my PhD thesis.
Floral constancy in native bees (link to manuscript)
Floral constancy is the tendency of a pollinator to sequentially visit flowers of the same species within a single foraging bout despite the availability of other rewarding plant species. We investigated the presence of floral constancy in five different species of social and solitary native bees. This is the first study of its kind where floral constancy is measured by manual observations and validated by pollen load, pollen sac, and among individuals within a hive. One of the prominent results from this study is that while bees show high floral constancy, the behavior is shaped by the locally abundant species and not the most abundant species in the community/landscape.
Seasonally flowering communities often exhibit higher flowering synchrony than what can be attributed to environmental factors alone. Flowering synchrony can either increase competition for pollinators or improve pollination through facilitation. Consequently, analyzing a community's flowering patterns can help identify its ecological constraints. High-elevation grassland ecosystems in tropical forests are understudied. These ecosystems have a unique climate and high levels of endemism. In this study, we characterized the flowering phenology of a seasonal, herbaceous community in Western Ghats, India.
Our results show that flowering seasonality was shaped by long dry seasons and subsequent rainfall patterns. The overall flowering of the community is asynchronous despite having mass flowering species. The plant-pollinator networks identified native bees as dominant pollinators and the prominence of generalized interactions. Sub-seasonal temporal shifts in pollination networks that matched flowering abundances within the community. Our results suggest that competition for pollinators probably drives flowering asynchrony within these seasonal herbaceous communities rather than pollination facilitation. (full text is available upon request).
Native bees as biological insurance for forests and agriculture
Native bees as biological insurance for forests and agriculture
Services provided by native pollinators are often neglected in agricultural planning when these ecosystem services are critical for the survival of flora, fauna as well as human dependency on forest products. Here we study the diversity and the role of native bees as effective pollinators of agricultural crops and wild flora. We also promote the beekeeping practices for the Indian native Apis cerana indica around our study site and study its pollination pasture as well as effect on agricultural crops. This is a collaborative project that started in February 2021 and is supported by the INLAKS-Ravisankaran fellowship small grants program.
Publications:
Publications:
Published:
Shrotri, S., Kaur, S., Dhargalkar, R., Pathura Valappil, N., & Gowda, V. (2025). Mass Flowering and Flowering Asynchrony Characterize a Seasonal Herbaceous Community in the Western Ghats. Biotropica, 57(5), e70080. (https://doi.org/10.1111/btp.70080)
Shrotri S., Thackeray T., Page N. (2025) Memecylon coorgensis (Melastomataceae), a new species from the central Western Ghats of Karnataka, India (Edinburgh Journal of Botany https://journals.rbge.org.uk/ejb/article/view/2062).
Francila, F. A., Prasanna, N. S., Shrotri, S., Nawge, V., & Gowda, V. (2023). Life amidst debris: urban waste management affects the utilization of anthropogenic waste materials in avian nest construction. Tropical Ecology, 1-9 (https://doi.org/10.1007/s42965-023-00302-z).
(Book chapter) Shrotri S., Singh P. 2016. Rauwolfia serpentina- an antihypertensive plant. Ethnomedicinal Plants: Phytochemistry and Pharmacological Profiles (ISBN: 9788177546620).
Submitted or In review:
Shrotri S., Kaur S., Nawge V., Sandhya S., Dandavate R., Gowda V. (2024). Revisiting Aristotle's observation on bees: High floral constancy is common among bees but it is shaped by the locally abundant flowering species (in review; submitted to Oecologia, Pre-print: https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.10.28.614270).
Shrotri S., Gowda V. (2024) Pollinator bias and differential reproductive compatibilities maintain floral colour morphs in Curcuma caulina (Zingiberaceae), a night-flowering ginger from the Western Ghats, India (in review; submitted to New Phytologist, pre-print: https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.09.21.614269).
Albal A., Azad G., Shrotri S., Gowda V. (2020) When to be a male? Role of resource-limitation and pollinators in determining floral sex in an andromonoecious spiderwort. (Pre-print: bioRxiv DOI: doi.org/10.1101/2020.06.06.138354)
In preparation:
Shrotri S., Gowda V. Trait-based discrimination between polymorphic flowers by nocturnal hawk-moth pollinators (in preparation).
Shrotri S., Gowda V. Pollinator-sensitive nectar replenishment in a nocturnal, mass flowering ginger Curcuma caulina (Zingiberaceae) from Western Ghats, India (in preparation).
Shrotri S., Gowda V. Back to definitions: Standardising terminologies that describe patterns in flowering phenology (in preparation).
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