PhD Theses (WII)

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4

Reproductive strategy and behaviour of male Asiatic Lions.
(Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun, 2008) Meena, V.; Jhala, Y.V.; Chellam, Ravi
The field study was carried out from April 2002 to February 2007 and the intensive study area covered 1075 km2 area of the Gir PA including Sanctuary West and National Park. i) Demographic changes in the Gir lion population were monitored using individual identification profiles for a period of four years. Lion population was estimated using mark-recapture models. Movement patterns, spacing mechanisms and land tenure system of four females (one radio-collared female), five adult males (two radio-collared males) and one subadult male (radio-collared) were obtained. Of these, seven individuals were monitored from 2002–2007. Lion diet was assessed both by intensive search across the study area and record of lion kills as well as analysis of scat. A questionnaire survey was conducted in twenty nesses that included seven nesses in central Gir and thirteen nesses in Gir-west to assess the livestock holding and causes of livestock mortality. Inter-kill intervals were obtained from direct observation of radio-collared lions.
Spatial patterns of species richness and distribution in breeding land birds of the Central Indian Highlands.
(Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun, 2006) Jaypal, R.; Qureshi, Qamar; Chellam, Ravi
Variations in number and distribution of species in space constitute one of the fundamental themes in ecological research. It is being increasingly recognized that studies on species diversity at regional scale are essential to understand the mechanisms of maintenance of biological diversity. Emergence of macroecology, where large-scale ecological phenomena are examined to test biogeographical hypotheses, has considerably widened the scope of these approaches to include application of empirical patterns in finding solutions to conservation issues. This study, adopting this acroecological framework, investigates the spatial patterns in species richness and distribution of breeding land birds in central India. 2. The study was conducted across the Satpura and Vindhya Ranges, collectively known as Central Indian Highlands, in Madhya Pradesh, India between March, 2002 and September, 2005. Bird species composition is found to be primarily determined by vegetation structure at regional level and by floristic composition at local scale. This finding is consistent with earlier observations that birds respond, in their species composition, to vegetation structure across habitats and to vegetation composition within habitats. The species-area relationship in central Indian birds is best described by power function curve with a slope of 0.12. The acutely low slope points to the extremely sparse nature of spatial gradient in bird species diversity of Central Indian Highlands. The findings of the study clearly illustrate the bias in PA network that a single-species approach can potentially bring about. The recent rediscovery of the critically endangered Forest Owlet (Heteroglaux blewitti), after a gap of 113 years, from these low-rainfall dry deciduous forests highlights the importance of extending adequate protection to all major biomes and the need for multi-species approach in design and maintenance of an efficient PA network.
Reptilian species distribution in response to habitat fragmentation and microhabitats in the rainforests of southern Western Ghats, India.
(Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun, 2001) Ishwar, N.M.; Chellam, Ravi
Habitat fragmentation has long been recognized as a threat to biological diversity and a major cause in the sudden increase in the extinction rates of species. Demographic and environmental stochasticity, habitat degeneration, the decrease in genetic variability and the influx of secondary forest species all lead to the extinction of forest species in the forest fragments. The forests in the various hill ranges in the Western Ghats are under anthropogenic pressure, mainly due to commercial plantations like tea, coffee, cardamom and spices and timber. The construction of dams for irrigation and hydroelectric power projects and roads and rapid urbanization are other ways by which the once contiguous middle elevation rainforests of the Western Ghats have been dismembered into scattered fragments. The rainforests of the Western Ghats is one of the richest biogeograpic zones in the country with more than 50% of the reptiles reported from the area being endemic to these forests. The most serious problem that is faced by the wildlife managers in the Western Ghats is that the remaining forests, especially the rainforests, occur in a highly fragmented state. The effect of rainforest fragmentation has taken its toll on the overall biological diversity with declines in reptile species contributing to this loss. Addressing this conservation problem becomes difficult in any forum, as studies on reptiles are few and poorly represented in literature. In this background, the objectives of the present study broadly defined here were to understand 1) the factors that govern the distribution of reptiles in the rainforests. The factors include both macro and microhabitat variables that the reptiles are know to respond to; and 2) to see if the process of rainforest fragmentation has affected the reptilian distribution and community structure, and to understand the direction of this impact. The study was divided in to two phases, the first phase was devoted to understanding the factors that were likely to influence the distribution of rainforest reptiles, while the second phase looked into the effects of rainforest fragmentation on reptiles. A combination of sampling techniques that included the adaptive cluster sampling (for leaf litter reptiles), the forest transects (for arboreal reptiles), stream surveys (for nocturnal stream dwelling reptiles) and opportunistic sampling was used to sample rainforest reptiles. Three sites in the contiguous rainforests of Kalakad-Mundanthurai . Tiger Reserve (KMTR), that broadly represented the altitude range and the different drainages, formed the site for the first phase of the fieldwork. The fourteen rainforest fragments in the Anamalai Hills were the study sites for the second phase of fieldwork where the effects of rainforest fragmentation were enumerated explore in detail the two major points expressed above, and detailed assessment of what is needed to promote reptile conservation is provided at the end.
Ecology of the Asiatic Lion Panthera leo persica.
(Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun, 1993) Chellam, Ravi; Johnsingh, A.J.T.
The major objectives of my study were to assess the predation ecology, habitat use and the ranging patterns of the lions in the Gir forest. The ultimate and long term goal of this research effort was to examine the feasibility of a translocation effort in an attempt to establish a free ranging population of lions away from the Gir forest. The ecological data generated a free ranging population of lions away from the Gir forest. The ecological data generated would enable the assessment of prospective translocation sites and insights gained about lion behavoiur. This study was designed to have an extensive scope to generate base line data for planning and management of gir forest and the lions.

PhD Theses (WII)

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