Yadvinder Malhi CBE FRS
Profile
Working in the Indian Ocean region has been new to me in so many ways: I was invited onto a Bertarelli-funded project with the Universities of Lancaster and Exeter, looking at the links between seabird, island and reef ecology. We study sites in Chagos, Seychelles and French Polynesia. It is fascinating to study these unique atoll forests, which have often received less research attention than the surrounding marine ecosystems. And sharing approaches, insights and learning across terrestrial and marine ecology is wonderful and valuable, and something that does not happen enough in ecological research.
As an experience as a researcher, it has opened up new horizons and challenges, such as working out how to snorkel onto islands with our ecological survey data, how to process leaves and soils on a swaying ship. I appreciate the different challenges of different types of ecological research: in the atolls forests we can be bothered by mosquitoes, but have an unlimited supply of oxygen to collected our data at leisure!
Working in a team of terrestrial and marine has made me appreciate what we all know intuitively to be true: terrestrial and marine ecology are not separate realms but deeply connected and interacting components of a single ecological whole.
Biography
My Project
Other Interests
I have been interested in the ecology of whole ecosystems, rather than focus on specific taxa. From my early research on trees in tropical forests, my interests have spread to a range of ecosystems including savannas, temperate forests and grasslands, agricultural systems and even the Arctic tundra, and also expanded to include both plants and animals in a collective ecosystem understanding. Recently I have become particularly intrigued in the application of analysis of energy flow through plants, animals and microbes as a way of understanding the function and health of ecosystems. And more widely I am looking at what it takes to enable nature recovery in in a socially inclusive and equitable manner.