Title: Nutrient-spillover and its impact on plant mutualistic and antagonistic interactions.

Abstract:

Anthropogenic pressures such as agricultural intensification and land use change strongly impact the community dynamics of forest ecosystems. Intensified farming practices are increasingly leading towards nutrient spillover into the adjacent forest systems. The plant communities growing on the edges of fields are more likely to be subjected to higher run-off concentrations. As a result, depending on the distance from agricultural edges, nutrient spillover can have variable effects on plants and, in turn, affect the associated interactions with animals at various life stages. In this talk, I will discuss my plans to examine the impact of nutrient spillover on plant mutualistic and antagonistic interactions using a combination of field, laboratory, and semi-natural experiments.

About Speaker:

Upasana is presently pursuing her Ph.D. in plant-animal interactions lab at Department of Biology, Ashoka University. Her interests lie in ecology of plant-animal interactions and behavior of social organisms. Before joining Ashoka, she received her B.Sc degree in Zoology from Calcutta University and finished her masters from the Department of Zoology, University of North Bengal.