Kandlikar Profile

Gaurav Kandlikar

Assistant Professor
SEE Division

Office/Lab: Life Sciences Annex A363
Email: [email protected]
Visit Lab Website

Area of Interest

Research topics: My research is generally focused on the ecology and evolution of species interactions. Most of my work to date has focused on how abiotic and biotic interactions shape plant species coexistence and biodiversity patterns over environmental gradients. I tackle these questions by integrating ecological theory with empirical data, and I have conducted field work in systems ranging from grasslands to forests. My current research focuses on three themes:

  1. Soil microbial controls over plant communities
  2. Using functional traits to study demography and species interactions
  3. Pedagogy of quantatitive topics in ecology and evolution

Research process: The insights from our research are only as robust as the processes that led to the results. Science as a whole, and ecology in particular, has had several notable and painful reminders that many dominant research practices in our field are fundamentally flawed. Such flawed practices recreate societal inequity and oppression, and generate unreliable results. To this end, a major emphasis in my lab is to continually reflect on how we conduct research, to embrace ethical research practices at all steps, and to advocate for such practices beyond our lab. I am always open to conversations about how we conduct research, including interdisciplinary collaborations that turn a critical eye to the field of ecology.

Selected Publications

Yan, X., Levine, J., and Kandlikar, G.S. 2022. A quantitative synthesis of microbial effects on plant diversity. 

McGuire, R. , Hayashi, K. , Yan, X. , Carita Vaz, M., Cinoglu, D., Cowen, M., Sullivan, L., Martínez Blancas, A., Vazquez-Morales, S., and Kandlikar, G.S. 2022. EcoEvoApps: interactive applications for teaching quantitative models in ecology and evolution.   

Simha, A., A. James, J. D. Monk, H-X Zou, P-J Ke, A. Wright, M. D. Bimler, C. M. Moore, S. Pierre, L. N. Carley and G. Kandlikar 2024. When the window is a mirror: how do dominant theories limit our understanding of nature? (ESA 2023 INS23).  https://doi.org/10.1002/bes2.2145

Kandlikar, G.S. 2024. Quantifying soil microbial effects on plant species coexistence: a conceptual synthesis. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajb2.16316