Atul Joshi (Junior Research Fellow)
atulj [at] ncbs [dot] res [dot] in
 

My study aims to understand the role of biotic and abiotic factors that regulate the establishment of woody species in forest-grassland landscape mosaics along the upper reaches of the Western Ghats.

The high-altitude reaches of the Western Ghats in India support a unique forest-grassland landscape mosaic, characterized by abrupt eco-tone boundaries between stunted evergreen forest patches and surrounding grasslands. Locally called shola-grasslands, these ancient tropical ecosystems harbor several rare, endemic and endangered plant and animal species, including many that are temperate in origin. I aim to examine the role of three proposed drivers: soil properties, fire and herbivory in regulating woody species establishment in these ecosystems.

I am going to use manipulative experiments to examine how herbivory and fire, coupled with soil properties might influence the germination and seedling survival of native and alien invasive tree species. Parallely, I will monitor climatic variables to assess their correlations with woody species establishment in these ecosystems. This study will contribute significantly to our understanding of the functional ecology of this ecosystem, and provide insights into why native woody species are unable to establish in grasslands, but exotics are still capable of invading grasslands.

Other projects

• Assessment of the community structure of montane grasslands of the Western Ghats, India
• Building up a database on distribution and life history traits of grass species occurring in India

Publications

• AA Joshi, D Mudappa and TRS Raman (in press) Invasive alien species in relation to edges and forest structure in tropical rainforest fragments of the Western Ghats. Tropical Ecology.
• AA Joshi, D Mudappa and TRS Raman (2009) Brewing trouble: Coffee invasion in relation to edges and forest structure in tropical rainforest fragments of the Western Ghats, India. Biological Invasions 11.10: 2387-2400
• Rajeev Pillay, David A.W. Miller, James E. Hines, Atul A. Joshi and M.D. Madhusudan (in press) Accounting for false positives improves estimates of occupancy from key informant interviews. Diversity and Distributions.