I am a plant scientist and my overarching research interests revolve around the microbial ecology in association with plants roots especially the mycorrhizal symbiosis, on the broader scale it comprise of interactions between mycorrhiza and plant community development, diversity of Arbuscular mycorrhiza in the rhizosphere of plants growing under diverse climatic conditions including the harsh desert ecosystem to the mild agricultural systems. My research interest also lies in studying the mycorrhizal interaction with the geochemical heterogeneity that may result in modifications of natural plant communities. In order to achieve these goals a combination of field work and laboratory techniques are required. More specifically I am interested in examining the intimate relationship between the natural and manmade plant communities, the ecology and taxonomy of mycorrhiza and how this interaction may translate itself to enhance our understanding about the mechanisms involved in the development of both symbiotic partners i.e. plants and mycorrhiza.
During my stay at the University of the Punjab as master student I have the honor to work in the laboratory of Professor Dr. Muhammad Ilyas and my research focused upon the karyotypic analysis of Allium and Capsicum varieties. This project skilled me in various kinds of microscopic techniques such as light field, dark field, polarized and differential interference microscopy. I was also involved to develop new or modified already available protocols for the visualization of chromosomes through C-banding and G-banding techniques. Apart from that I was able to learn macro and micro-photography essential to analyze the topography, size and structure of chromosomes. These microscopic and protocol designing techniques greatly helped me in my later Ph.D. research.
Mycorrhizal fungi form a symbiotic association with roots in majority of the plants and facilitate to absorb mineral nutrients in exchange photosynthates by the plants thus found to be critical in the functioning of terrestrial and agricultural ecosystems. My PhD research encompassed three main aspects (i) since I was first to study the mycorrhiza in the cholistan desert plant communities of Pakistan and nothing was known about the status and diversity of this fungi, therefor, the first objective was to know the status of mycorrhiza and its taxonomy in the desert plant communities (ii) the deviation in the plant community composition in the cholistan is governed by soil chemical heterogeneity as the climate is same on whole of the desert, thus I was involved to characterized the interaction between mycorrhizal communities, soil chemical composition and seasonality (iii) lastly my PhD research dealt with the ecological role of mycorrhiza in the development of natural plant communities in the selected rangeland habitats. During my PhD I was able to isolate more than fifty Arbuscular mycorrhizal types out of which twelve isolates ware not identified up to the species level while I found highly dynamic Arbuscular mycorrhizal community composition even in the rhizosphere of plants growing in a single community composition. Luckily during my PhD I was able to manage a six month trip to University of North Wales, Bangor under faculty exchange program and was able to perform all my trap culture and inoculation experiments in the green houses of University of Bangor under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Witebread and Prof. Dr. Ralf Oxley. These trap cultures resulted to isolate pure cultures of 18 different isolates first time reported from choliostan desert existed on the southern part of the province Punjab.
My current research though remainly focused on various aspects of mycorrhiza such as identifying and quantifying spatial patterns in the distribution, the causes responsible for these patterns, how these patterns affect variation in the distribution and abundance of mycorrhiza, how these patterns and processes change over time under natural and anthropogenic influences, and how to apply this knowledge to understand the ecological role of this symbiosis but other dimensions of my research involve developing an understanding about the eco-physiology of selected rage plants through hydroponic culturing , ethno –botany of medicinal plants, ecotypic variations in the economically important plants especially the perennial plants. My research also involves the study of available natural resources, rate of their exploitation and management in the southern part of the Punjab. All these research efforts could not be materialized without funding and to this end I was successful in obtain some good grants such as 2 million and 6 million from the HEC, 9 million from the Pakistan Environment Cell with the help of Mescon private Limited for the Fordwah project and 01 million from the private sector in addition to several small grants from my university and as co-PI. These research grants have allowed me to supervise the research of 21BS, 30M.Phil/MS and 02 Ph.D. students.