Research Interests

Tropical forests are storehouses of biodiversity. Identifying the ecological and evolutionary drivers of these diversity patterns continues to be of interest to ecologists and evolutionary biologists. In Asian tropics, new species of animals and plants continue to be discovered. Our lab aims at
1) systematic documentation of tropical diversity in an integrative taxonomic approach,
2) identifying the underlying geological, evolutionary and ecological processes that govern the diversity patterns and
3) identify the processes that govern the assembly of species in these forests.

We integrate a diverse set of approaches, including molecular phylogeny, traditional specimen-based taxonomy, molecular systematics, phylogenetic comparative methods, and species distribution modeling. More details on the past and ongoing research are here

Selected Publications

Bharti, D., Pawar, P. Y., Edgecombe, G. D., Joshi, J. 2023 Genetic diversity varies with species traits and latitude in predatory soil arthropods (Myriapoda: Chilopoda). Global Ecology and Biogeography, 32, 1508-1521.

Gopal, A., Bharti, D. K., Page, N., Dexter, K. G., Krishnamani, R., Kumar, A., Joshi, J. 2023. Range restricted old and young lineages show the southern Western Ghats to be both museum and cradle of diversity for woody plants. Proceedings of the Royal Society B. 290: 20222513.

Bharti, D., Edgecombe, G., Karanth, P., Joshi, J. 2021. Spatial patterns of phylogenetic diversity and endemism in the Western Ghats, India: a case study using ancient predatory arthropods. Ecology and Evolution, 11, 3, 16499-16513.

Joshi, J., Karanth, P., Edgecombe, G. 2020. The Out-of-India hypothesis: Evidence from an ancient centipede genus, Rhysida (Chilopoda: Scolopendromorpha), from the Oriental Region, and systematics of Indian species. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 189, 3, 828–861.

Joshi J., & Karanth P. 2013. Did southern Western Ghats of peninsular India serve as refugia for its endemic biota during the Cretaceous volcanism? Ecology and Evolution 3, 3275- 3282.