Theses and Dissertations

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Author: search.filters.author.Habib, BilalStart date: 2024

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    Tigers in a multi-use forest: Prey, diet and conflict
    (Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun, 2025) Chauhan, Aayush; Pandav, Bivash; Habib, Bilal
    This study provides a comprehensive assessment of tiger prey, dietary dynamics, and human-wildlife interactions in the Ramnagar Forest Division, a critical area outside protected areas in the Western Terai Arc. Despite a notable increase in tiger numbers—from 39 adults in 2015 to 67 in 2022—density surface modeling revealed persistently low populations of key wild prey species such as chital and sambar, primarily due to habitat degradation from historical timber-focused management. Diet analysis of genetically confirmed tiger scats demonstrated a strong reliance on large-bodied prey, with sambar and livestock comprising a significant portion of tiger biomass intake, reflecting both prey scarcity and ecological stress. The detection of plastic in both sambar and tiger digestive tracts further highlights the emerging threat of environmental pollution in multi-use forests. Human-tiger conflict remains acute, with 353 livestock depredation events and 28 attacks on people recorded over recent years, concentrated near settlements where prey and livestock overlap are highest. These findings underscore the urgent need for integrated conservation strategies that prioritize habitat restoration—such as grassland recovery—community-based conflict mitigation, improved waste management, and a shift in forest policy from timber production to biodiversity and coexistence. Only through such landscape-level, participatory approaches can the long-term viability of tigers and their prey be secured in shared, human-dominated areas like Ramnagar.
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    To defend or to Not defend? To study resource dependent territoriality in a Sunbird community in Anaikatti hills, Western Ghats
    (Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun, 2025) Sakthivel, Sneha Rethinam; Habib, Bilal; Jayapal, R.
    Sunbirds are excellent model organisms to study resource dependent territoriality or feeding territoriality due to their dependence on nectar which is both renewable as well as quantifiable. It is well established in many of its ecological counterparts such as American hummingbirds of family Trochilidae, Australian honeyeaters of family Meliphagidae, and Hawaiian honeycreepers of the family Fringillidae. This study is exploratory research aimed to find the presence of feeding territoriality in an Indian sunbird community as well as to test the threshold model of feeding territoriality. The study was done in an heterogenous resource landscape which is not quite comparable to previous studies done on acres of land dominated by single plant species. Though the sunbird community agreed to some basic principles, the results reflect a much complex response to changes in flower abundance and intruder pressure.
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    Movement and space use pattern of Tigers in the Eastern Vidarbha landscape, Maharashtra, India
    (Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun, 2024) Hussain, Zehidul; Habib, Bilal
    Movement is a crucial ecological process that influences the survival, population dynamics, and evolution of animals. Animal movement patterns are diverse and are influenced by life stages, sex, age, and habitat requirements. The relationship between animal movement and conservation is complex, particularly due to human-induced environmental changes This study emphasises that various factors influence animal movement, including individual characteristics and external factors such as resource availability, distribution, competition, and predation. Animals adjust their space use based on seasonal changes in resource availability. Additionally, movement patterns and space use can be influenced by habitat disruption, forcing individuals to displace and establish new home ranges. Landscape features play a significant role in animal home ranges, with resource distribution determining the extent of the required area. Fragmentation of habitats and human activities can affect landscape connectivity, leading to isolation, reduced gene flow, and potential genetic bottlenecks or local extinctions. Thus, maintaining habitat connectivity is crucial for long-term survival of highly mobile species. The study highlights the need for comprehensive datasets and technological advancements, such as GPS tracking, to study animal movement and behaviour. It also emphasises the importance of studying dispersal patterns, as dispersed individuals often encounter humandominated landscapes and face increased vulnerability to anthropogenic effects. This study focused on quantifying movement patterns and space use across three life stages: predispersal, dispersal, and post-dispersal phases. The results revealed differences in space use within and outside protected areas, with individuals outside protected areas requiring larger territories. The study also identified seasonal variations in space use and movement patterns, with dispersed tigers exhibiting the highest space use. Land-use composition, landscape configuration, and anthropogenic disturbances influence the use of tiger space. These findings provide insights into the factors influencing tiger movement and space use in a human-dominated landscape. They highlighted the importance of maintaining habitat connectivity, reducing anthropogenic disturbances, and restoring suitable habitats outside protected areas to facilitate dispersal and ensure the long-term survival of tigers.
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    Understanding sioth bear (Melursus ursinus) Genetic Connectivity across Vidarbha Landscape, Maharashtra, India
    (Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun, 2024) Gomes, Lynett; Habib, Bilal
    The goal of this thesis is to use non-invasive DNA sampling to study how sloth bears roam throughout the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra, India. Maharashtra's Vidarbha Landscape is a quickly changing area. The great biodiversity that lives there is under risk from the quick changes in the landscape. It's vital to note that there are about 200 instances of deadly human-sloth bear interactions in Maharashtra alone each year, and that number could increase in the years to come due to increased development activities in the area. Wide ranging or long dispersing species who have extensive movements across a landscape are the ones most affected by range contraptions and fragmentation of the habitat. The broad objectives of this thesis were 1. Understand Genetic Structure, Variation and relatedness amongst sloth bear populations in Vidharbha Landscape and 2. Evaluate genetic relatedness with respect to permeability of the landscape and connectivity. The functional corridor obtained for sloth bears is the main result of this thesis. This can be used in a number of ways by managers, planning bodies, and stakeholders. First, the occupancy and connection would assist indicate key movement regions and areas of concern when evaluated in conjunction with the documented incidents of sloth bear attacks. The pinch points could be focused upon and conserved as intact corridors. Secondly, the movement areas could be modelled with documented bear attacks to highlight the probable corridors or movement areas that need awareness to avoid bear attacks
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    Subsidized Mammals: Understanding the mammalian interactions with garbage sites around Western- Rajaji Tiger Reserve, Uttarakhand
    (Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun, 2024) Nagarale, Shashank; Habib, Bilal; Shrotriya, Shivam; Pandav, Bivash
    Anthropogenic food subsidies in the form of garbage dumps are widespread across the globe. When such sites are found around protected areas/wildlife habitats, wildlife is observed to exploit these subsidies as food resources. Foraging on such human-derived foods may have a negative or positive impact on individual to community/ecosystem levels. It becomes important to know the species associated with garbage dumps when found around protected areas and understand the interactions happening at the garbage dumps. This study was conducted aiming to know the animals at risk and also increase our understanding of these novel setups. I deployed 13 IR camera traps at total 10 garbage sites resulting in a cumulative effort of 437 trap nights at the garbage site. The camera trap data was processed using Megadetector & SpSeg packages in python. This data was used to get the Relative Abundance Index with respect to 437 trap nights. Sambar (RAI= 8.35) was the species with the highest visitations at the garbage site, followed by Indian crested porcupine (RAI= 2.70) and spotted deer (RAI= 2.15). Synanthropes like rhesus macaque (RAI= 1.78 ) and wild pig (RAI= 1.67) were the most visitors following spotted deer. I hypothesised that synanthropic species will have higher visitations because of distribution outside protected areas, followed by omnivores from the forest area as compared to herbivores and carnivores from the forest areas because of their ability to exploit larger variety of food resources. The data from this study rejected this hypothesis as forest dwelling species like sambar and Indian crested porcupine visited these sites more as compared to other synanthropes. Lesser visitations by omnivores like golden jackal, small indian civet, small indian mongoose; carnivore like common leopard along with scavenger striped hyena was a result of the less percentage of poultry waste (0.33% at only one site) in the garbage sites. I collected data on variables such as distance of the garbage site from the protected area, human infrastructure and waterbody, also quantified the size of the garbage site in terms of perimeter, NDVI difference between the protected area and garbage site as a surrogate of vegetation cover, relative abundance of each species in the adjoining protected area and calculated the composite RAI values of human, dogs/cats and livestock as a disturbance measure . I quantified the garbage in broader categories using a 1 m2 quadrat which was divided into smaller sets of 25x25 cm2. A total of 39 plots were laid for all the garbage site. The categories quantified were food wrappers & food disposables, food materials, religious offerings, agriculture discards, dung plates, sanitary waste, construction waste, carcass & poultry waste, pharmaceutical waste, cloths and plastic and others. The relation between relative abundances within protected area and visitations at the garbage site was assessed using Spearman correlation test along with Wilcoxon test p-values. With the available dataset I used ANOSIM using ‘vegan’ package in R program v4.1.2 to investigate the effect by considering the dissimilarity of the communities between sites based on the RAI values of the species for each garbage site. Relative abundance from protected area was not related to visitation of the species at the garbage site. Out of the selected variables, the ANOSIM values suggested the effect of ‘distance between garbage site and protected area’ on forest species and synanthropes. The effect of the ‘size of garbage site’ on the species could not be tested as there was not much variation in the sizes of the garbage sites. Human, dogs/cats and livestock presence affected the forest species, suggesting their sensitivity towards disturbances, while synanthropes were found to have affinity with the NDVI difference between protected area and garbage sites (vegetation cover at the garbage site) and the ‘percentage of food materials available in the garbage site’. To understand the co-occurrences at the garbage site, I modified the probabilistic models for co-occurrences (Veech, 2013) to get pair-wise associations at the temporal scale of one hour. A total 13 mammals avoided co-occurring with humans (and vehicle) while nine with livestock and dogs. Co-occurrences were found to be there between sambar and Indian crested porcupine at two out of three religious sites and at a household site, suggesting high tolerance levels to each other’s presence at the garbage site to exploit the resources. One of the sites was visited by barking deer with spotted deer group/herd. This association by solitary living barking deer can be for foraging effectively by reducing vigilance efforts in a group.