Environmental Predictability as a Driver of Savanna Plant Trait Variation
2026 Faculty Research Award
AWARD PERIOD: 2026-2028
Most plants adapt their growth to match predictable seasonal and yearly environmental shifts, but savanna plants respond to environmental fluctuations in unpredictable ways, which has downstream implications for savanna biodiversity. Carla Staver, Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, and Gabriele Villarini, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and HMEI, will investigate a possible explanation for this unpredictability: that savanna plants are unable to adapt to environmental fluctuations in predictable ways because the environmental conditions they experience are so unpredictable. Savanna rainfall can be highly variable both within and across years, and plants can be unexpectedly wiped out by chance fires. This makes it difficult for plants to “choose” a strategy, for example in terms of how deep and wide to spread their roots, whether to invest in spines to ward off herbivores, and how much energy to invest in leaves and bark. To test their hypothesis, the team plans to develop a model that predicts plant growth based on rainfall, soil, and landscape features for two savanna ecosystems: Kruger National Park in South Africa, which has one annual wet season, and Mpala Research Station in Kenya. They will then evaluate the model’s predictions using remote sensing and field collected data from Kruger and Mpala. By advancing our understanding of biodiversity in savannas, which historically has received limited research attention, this project will help stem the loss of biodiversity in savanna ecosystems.
Participating Departments
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
- Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
- High Meadows Environmental Institute (HMEI)
Faculty
