Research Projects

The control and management of invasive species is a crucial task, because the rapid proliferation of these species often hurts the native biodiversity and changes the pre-existing ecological relationships and structures, damaging both ecological and economic systems. Particularly in India, the disruptive effects of invasive species can be catastrophic, in terms of both human and non-human cost. It is therefore a crucial task to understand the causes behind the spread of invasive species in India. Extensive field data exists describing the extent of spread of these species across India, but the mechanics behind their spread remain poorly understood. Previous attempts to place the existing data in a theoretical framework have relied on statistical tools like MaxEnt and GARP. While such studies are very useful in identifying the regions of current spread and in predicting likely regions of future spread, they do not reveal the underlying relationships between the different biotic and abiotic factors in a given ecosystem that enable the spread of invasive species, knowledge of which would drastically improve our ability to fight this spread. In this project I will fill this gap by building extensive analytical and simulation models to identify the causes and effects of species invasion in India, and to predict their spread given evolving climatic and urbanization conditions in India. In the first part of the project I will analytically and numerically solve the differential equations describing the different models of population growth of the invasive and native species, in order to devise predictive analytical formulae for crucial properties like the chance of a given invasive species population to establish in a given ecosystem and the minimum viable population size needed to flourish. I will also execute agent-based simulations and statistical modelling to understand future scenarios of species invasion. The modelling will be informed by real-world data on invasive species spread in India. In the second part I will first study the effects that spatial heterogeneity of the landscape has on the rise of invasive species, by combining the island biogeography model with a spatial population matrix approach. I will then study the effects that the growth of invasive species can have on the host landscape in turn, through a statistical analysis of data on the evolution of landscape features over time and a combination of pattern formation theory and reaction-diffusion models to understand how new spatial patterns may emerge in the landscape. In the third part I will address some of the economic consequences of species invasion, such as by identifying the invasive species that will be the most cost-effective to eradicate for the recovery of an ecosystem, and quantifying the impact that human activity in an ecosystem has on species invasion, such as through resource depletion.