Theses and Dissertations

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    Resource utilization patterns of reptiles in the Tropical Dry Mixed Deciduous Forest of Anaikatty Hills, Western Ghats, India.
    (SACON, 2007) Mukherjee, Debanik; Bhupathy, S.
    The western ghats is one of the 34 globally recognized biodiversity hot spots. Among the 506 species of reptiles reported distributed in India 165 are distributed in the Western ghats. The concept of a biotic community may be defined as tn assemblages of various organisms living together and interacting at all trophic levels. The present study was undertaken with the following objectives (1) to know the suitability of various techniques for sampling reptiles in tropical mixed dry forest (2) To study aspects of population of reptiles in the Anaikatty hills in terms of species richness, diversity and relative abundance (3) to understand the patterns of resource use by reptiles at various spatio-temporal level.
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    Population Status and Resource Utilization of Nicobar long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis umbrosus) in Nicobar Islands, India
    (SACON, 2021) Avdhoot, Velnkar D; Kumara, H N
    Long-tailed macaque (Macaca fascicularis) is one of the most widely distributed primates in east Asian countries. The subspecies of long-tailed macaque in India is M. f. umbrosus, which is endemic to three Nicobar Islands viz. Great Nicobar, Little Nicobar, Katchal. This study arose from the need to create baseline information for the isolated populations of the subspecies. I conducted a study on the ranging pattern, feeding habits, and activity budget of M. fumbrosus for my thesis. For population status and social organization the existing trails used in earlier studies were surveyed. Instantaneous scan sampling was followed for the data collection on activity budgets and feeding ecology. Geo-coordinates of the group were recorded every 30 min while following the group to assess the movement pattern and plot its home-range. The group encounter rate per kilometre in Great Nicobar (0.30) was significantly lower than in Katchal (0.48) with no difference between Little Nicobar (0.35) and the other two islands. The mean group size between Great Nicobar (39.83±17.47, N=6) and Katchal (43.50±26.15, N= 4) did not vary significantly. The population increased at an intrinsic rate (r) of 0.12, 0.14 and 0.17 in Great Nicobar, Little Nicobar and Katchal from 2006 to 2014. Throughout the day Resting was the most observed activity and foraging and scouting were the least observed activities. Activities feeding, social and movement occurred at similar proportion to each other through the day-time classes. Study group was observed to feed on 26 major food items of which 12 were introduced by humans and 14 were of native origin. Further seven extractive foraging and tool use behaviors were observed which include food extraction, foraging, food preparation and teeth flossing. females significantly fed on less coconuts compared to males despite showing equal proficiency in manipulation of all coconut types. ANOSIM performed between ages revealed that adults and immature were significantly dissimilar in their behavioral repertoire in processing coconuts. Markov chains for dry, mature and tender coconuts by adult and immature showed differences in behavioural transitions. A total of 830 group locations were collected during the study period, spread over in 66 grid cells of which 6 grids were used most frequently.
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    Resource utilization and parental investment in the Indian for (Vulpes bengalensis) in Kutch, Gujarat
    (Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun, 2005) Home, Chandrima; Jhala, Y.V.
    I studied the resource utilization patterns in the Indian fox (Vulpes bengalensis) with respect to diet in Kutch, Gujarat. Resource use and availability by foxes were compared between two habitats and between two seasons. Resource availability was quantified through transects laid in both the habitats for the different prey items: mainly mammals, birds, reptiles, arthropods and fruits. Resource availability differed in both the habitats as well as across seasons (summer and winter). Density of fruiting shrubs (particularly Zizyphus) and gerbil burrows were significantly different between the two habitats. Gerbil population mean obtained from different colonies trapped during the study period showed a significant relationship with the total number of burrows in the colony (R2 =0.969). Scats collected from den sites were used to quantify resource use of the Indian fox. The minimum number of scats that can be used to estimate the annual food habits of the Indian fox in' a dry arid area like Kutch is about 110 scats. Frequency of occurrence of prey species also differed across habitat and seasons. The food habits of the Indian fox comprised of varied items, mainly arthropods like beetles, orthopterans, scorpions and termites. Among the other items, rodents, hares, spiny tailed lizards, birds and eggshells as well as fruits have been found. Arthropods were the most frequently occurring prey items (75% and above), among them particularly the termites. They are seen to be selected more than availability within the habitat. This was indicated by the three methods used to compare use versus availability (Ivlev's Index, Bonferroni's CI, and Compositional Analysis). However the Indian fox is seen to maximize energy requirements by selecting gerbils next in the preference after arthropods being selected more than availability during most cases within the habitat. Density of breeding units evaluated in the scrubland showed a density of 0.1 O/sq Ian. The density of breeding pairs obtained in this particular study was much higher as compared to the ones reported earlier for Kutch (0.04-0.06/sq Ian) due to good rainfall in the preceding two years thereby indicating a good prey base as compared to other years.