Theses and Dissertations

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    Ecology of the brown palm civet Paradoxurus jerdoni in the tropical rainforests of the Western Ghats, India
    (SACON, 2001) Mudappa B, Divya Cauvery; Kumar, Ajith
    The small carnivores of the mammalian Families of Viverridae, Herpestidae, and Mustelidae play very important roles in tropical rainforest ecosystems, as predators, prey, and seed dispersers. These roles have been poorly studied, even as small carnivore communities are undergoing changes due to severe loss and fragmentation of rainforests. This thesis explores the ecology of a small carnivore, the brown palm civet (Paradoxurus jerdoni Blanford 1885), endemic to the rainforests of the Western Ghats hill ranges of India, and also examines changes in the structure of the terrestrial and arboreal small carnivore community as a whole, due to rainforest fragmentation. The ecology of the brown palm civet, an endemic and nocturnal viverrid, was examined with reference to its role as a seed disperser, and the factors governing its diet composition, and ranging and activity behaviour, in the relatively undisturbed, large tract of rainforest in the Kalakad-Mundanthurai Tiger Reserve (KMTR), between May 1996 and December 1999. The small carnivore community here was compared with that in the rainforest fragments of the Anamalai Hills that were surveyed between January and May 2000. Habitat correlates of the occurrence of small carnivores were also examined.
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    IMPACTS OP HABITAT FRAGMENTATION ON THE TERRESTRIAL SMALL MAMMAL COMMUNITIES IN THE TROPICAL RAIN FOREST OP THE ANAIMALAI HILLS IN THE WESTERN GHATS, SOUTH INDIA
    (SACON, 1998) Prabhakar, A; Kumar, Ajith
    The loss and fragmentation of the species-rich tropical rain forests is the most serious conservation crisis currently facing us. In the Western Ghats in south India as much as 40% of the forests was lost between 1920s and 1990s, with a 17-fold increase in forest patches. Such fragmentation of forests leads in the long run to loss of species due to the problems faced by small isolated populations, the cascading effects of the changes in the micro and macro climate, and the effects of invading species. The goal of this study was to make an assessment of the changes in the small mammal community due to the fragmentation of their rain forest habitat in the Western Ghats. The study animals included rodents of the Families Muridae and Muscardinidae, and shrews of the Order Insectivora. The specific objectives were: (a) to evaluate the differences among rain forest fragments in the community structure of small mammals, in relation to macrohabitat features of the forest fragments; (b) to examine the synchrony among forest fragments in the seasonal variation of several demographic parameters; and (c) to identify species differences in microhabitat preferences and examine their relevance to the changes in community structure due to habitat fragmentation.
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    IMPACTS OF HABITAT FRAGMENTATION ON THE ARBOREAL MAMMALS IN THE WET EVERGREEN FORESTS OF THE ANAMALAI HILLS IN THE WESTERN GHATS, SOUTH INDIA
    (SACON, 1998) Umapathay, G; Kumar, Ajith
    Habitat fragmentation is the most severe threat to biological diversity and is the primary cause of the present species extinction crisis. Small populations in fragments are highly prone to extinction due to demographic and evironmental stochasticity, disease and catastrophes. Long term degeneration of habitat might also add to this extinction. In south India, wet evergreen (or rain) forest is confined to the Western Ghats mountains. Human activities such as plantations of tea, coffee, teak, etc., and construction of roads, railways, and reservoirs during the last two centuries have led to extensive loss of these forests. More importantly, the remaining forest has been severely fragmented. The impact of forest fragmentation is expected to be particularly severe among the arboreal mammals due to loss of arboreal connectivity between forest fragments. In this background, the objectives of this study were; 1) To assess the extent to which arboreal mammals disappear from wet evergreen forest fragments with respect to various landscape and habitat parameters associated with forest fragmentation; 2) To identify changes in their activity pattern and feeding ecology; 3) To examine changes in demographic parameters of these species in relation to habitat fragmentation; and 4) To examine species differences in their response to forest fragmentation and to suggest appropriate measures to enhance the survival of arboreal mammals in forest fragments.
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    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.
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    Study of the Bird Community in Agasthyamalai hills, Western Ghats, Kerala, India
    (SACON, 2018) Panigrahi, Madhumita; Azeez, P A
    patterns of occurrence or distribution and generality of the pattern (Weins 1989, Vellend 2010). A community is structured by wide array of factors, competition, niche availability, spatial heterogeneity, predation, climatic stability, productivity, dispersal, speciation and many more (Hutchinson 1959, Pianka 1966, Vellend 2010). On the other hand, distribution of species may be influenced by species composition, abundance, behaviour, morphology and their association with the environment (Weins 1989). Owing to the complexity of the systems and interactions among them, the study of community ecology is rightly stated by Schoener (1986) as the ‘most tumultuous and alluring of ecology’s subdisciplines’. Studies on avifauna have been playing a pivotal role in addressing intricate questions and testing varied hypotheses relating to community ecology. As widely noted, methodological advances, well-studied taxonomy and natural history, mostly diurnal behaviour and conspicuousness make birds an easy species to study
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    Factors Influencing Small Carnivore Community Structure in Chandoli National Park Northern Western Ghats
    (Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun, 2019) Lad, Himanshu C.; Gopi, G.V.
    The current study was conducted on small carnivores in Chandoli National Park of Sahyadri Tiger Reserve from December 2018 to April 2019. The main objectives was to understand drivers of spatial distribution and temporal variation amongst sympatric small carnivores present in the study area. This study provided information on local small carnivore distribution, dietary pattern of palm civet and time activity patterns of small carnivores in Chandoli national park
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    Floristic Composition and Patterns of Regeneration of Rainforest Trees in the Fragmented Forests of the Anamalai Hills, Southern Western Ghats
    (Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun, 2003) Balasubramaniam, Priya; Qureshi, Qamar; Chellam, Ravi
    The word diverse is almost a synonym for tropical rainforests. In no other habitat are found such an enormous number of life forms. These highly diverse systems are now facing severe threats as a result of habitat fragmentation. The aim of this study was to study the floristic composition and patterns of regeneration in the fragmented forests of the Anamalai hills, southern Western Ghats.Six fragments were chosen which varied in size and disturbance levels. They were- Iyerpadi (>2600ha), Andiparai (>185ha), Puduthotam (92ha), Pannimedu (66ha), Varattuparai 1c (11ha) and Varattuparai 4 (4ha). Quadrats of · 3 sizes were used to sample for different variables. 20 x 20m quadrats were used to enumerate tree sp, 5 x 5m quadrats were used to enumerate sapling sp and 1 x 1 m quadrats were used to count the numbers of seedlings. Height (m), GBH (cm), lopping I cutting signs, altitude, canopy cover, presence of weedy shrubs and ground cover of weedy herbs were the other variables measured. A total of 112 quadrats were laid, 25 in the first 4 fragments, 9 and 3 in the last two respectively. The findings revealed that tree and sapling generic richness showed a negative relationship with disturbance and time since isolation. Their correlations with area though positive were weak. Fragments were subjected to varied nature and levels of disturbance. Fragment characteristics such as area, time since isolation did influence the patterns of tree and sapling composition though weakly. There is an extremely weak correspondence between the tree and sapling composition of each fragment. There was a high number ' of non rainforest species in fragments which were relatively more disturbed. Relatively undisturbed fragments were more rich in rainforest trees · and saplings. Fragments showing higher levels of canopy openness were relatively more disturbed than others. Disturbed fragments also showed higher levels of weed invasion. Iyerpadi showed the highest generic richness in trees and saplings. Varattuparai 4 showed the least richness in both trees and sapling. Human disturbance due to its chronic. nature was the principal predictor of both tree and sapling composition.
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    Impacts of Habitat Conversion on the Leaf Litter Anuran Community of Varagaliar, Western Ghats
    (Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun, 1995) Saravanakumar, S.U.; Chellam, Ravi