Public Lecture: “Restoration of Evergreen Forests – Trait-Based Assessment and Field Monitoring for Climate-Resilient Restoration”

Prof. Jaideep Joshi is visiting Goettingen from Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, India from 15th until 22nd May! He was Sharath Paligi’s host when Sharath did his STSM in India.

During Prof. Joshi’s visit he will deliver a guest lecture on 21st May 2026 at 1 pm in Büsgenweg 1, room F01 "Thinking like a plant! Understanding the plant ecophysiology from an eco-evolutionary perspective".

Guest lecture: Thinking like a plant! Understanding plant ecophysiology from an eco-evolutionary perspective

Speaker: Prof. Dr. Jaideep Joshi
Department of Climate Studies, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, India

Date: May 21, 1-2 pm
Location: F01, Büsgenweg 1, 37077 Göttingen

Millennia of natural selection has selected for plants that optimize their function in the environments they face, subject to various tradeoffs. Prof. Joshi will demonstrate how evo-evolutionary optimality hypotheses allow us to formulate simpler and more robust descriptions of plant physiology that are impossible to infer from statistical analyses alone. Specifically, he will talk about optimality approaches for modelling photosynthesis, xylem construction, and fine-root function. He will then show how these physiological process descriptions come together into an eco-evolutionary vegetation model (PlantFATE), that allows us to model the dynamics and adaptations of hyperdiverse forests to environmental change.