@article {77445, title = {A socio-economic survey of the Singchung Bugun Village Community Reserve, Arunachal Pradesh, India}, journal = {CURRENT SCIENCE}, volume = {118}, year = {2020}, month = {05/2020}, pages = {1415-1419}, abstract = {

Community-managed lands often lack vital baseline information that assesses both natural resource dependence, as well as perceptions of power, involvement and support in management. We interviewed 171 households from 16 villages in the buffer of the Sin chung Bugun Village Community Reserve (SBVCR) in Arunachal Pradesh, India. In total, 68\% stated that SBVCR would be beneficial to wildlife and in terms of ecosystem services, and 45\% expressed support for its formation. However, 76\% identified multiple threats to the Reserve, including forest fires, hunting and agricultural expansion. Different parts of the Reserve were identified as being important for resource extraction, non-extractive uses and the need to be disturbance-free (with varying overlaps across these areas), thus calling for adaptive management.

}, doi = {10.18520/cs/v118/i9/1415-1419}, author = {Borah, B and Velho, N and Srinivasan, U} } @article {54878, title = {Size{\textendash}logging interactions and population dynamics in tropical understorey birds}, journal = {Current Science}, volume = {116}, year = {2019}, month = {03/2019}, pages = {795-801}, abstract = {

Demographic vital rates (e.g., fecundity and survival) determine population size and viability. However, how anthropogenic habitat change differentially influences these dynamic population processes for species with different traits remains unknown. Crucially, this limits a mechanistic understanding of species- and commu-nity-level patterns in response to intensity of habitat change, and therefore, impedes robust prediction of future species responses. We investigated how size (across 26 forest birds, spanning almost an order of magnitude in body mass) and habitat modification (logging intensity, from intact forest to a 2.5-fold re-duction in tree density) might interact to influence survival, reproduction and dispersal. Data were col-lected over five sessions under the robust design in a capture-mark-recapture framework and analysed using reverse time capture{\textendash}recapture models. We found that smaller species were more fecund with in-creased logging intensity, and dispersed from more heavily logged to more intact forest. With increasing size, species reproduced better in progressively more intact forest, and dispersed from intact forest into more logged forest. These results indicate important trait-linked differences in the relative significance of various demographic processes in influencing species responses to varying intensities of habitat change. Separating the mechanistic processes underlying observed patterns is crucial to understanding and predicting anthropogenic impacts on biodiversity.

}, url = {https://www.currentscience.ac.in/php/toc.php?vol=116\&issue=05}, author = {Srinivasan, U and Quader, Suhel} } @article {45441, title = {Responses of interspecific associations in mixed-species bird flocks to selective logging}, journal = {Journal of Applied Ecology}, volume = {55}, year = {2018}, month = {07/2018}, pages = {1637-1646}, abstract = {

  1. Non-trophic interactions (or, inter-species associations) play a prominent role in determining community structure and function. Mixed-species bird flocks are networks of non-trophic associations that confer foraging and anti-predator benefits to participant species. Yet, the responses of these interspecific associations to anthropogenic environmental changes are poorly understood.

  2. Selective logging is pervasive in the tropics, and can affect associations in mixed-species bird flocks by altering resource availability and/or predation risk, or through the altered abundances of species participating in mixed flocks. Across a gradient of logging intensity, we examined how the number and strength of associations in two different mixed-species flock types responded to logging intensity, while simultaneously controlling statistically for changes in the abundances of species in response to logging.

  3. Across the logging gradient, we used network analyses to: (1) quantify the proportion of potentially realizable associations, and (2) measure the strengths of these realized associations. For both these analyses, we used null models to investigate whether changes in the network properties of mixed flocks were simply abundance-driven, or congruent with expectations of how flock properties might be modified by selective logging.

  4. In understorey flocks, after controlling statistically for changing abundances of participant species, the proportion of realized associations decreased with increasing logging intensity, whereas mean association strength did not show any relation with logging intensity. In midstorey flocks, both the proportion and mean strength of realized associations increased with increasing logging intensity.

  5. Synthesis and applications. By statistically separating abundance and behaviour-mediated effects, we show that interspecific associations in mixed-species bird flocks respond to potential resource and/or predation changes from logging, but that their functional roles persist in logged forest. We show that logged forests can conserve not only community richness, but also function. Thus, these logged forests must be prevented from ongoing conversion into non-forest habitats such as agriculture and plantation.

}, doi = {10.1111/1365-2664.13097}, author = {Borah, B and Quader, Suhel and Srinivasan, U} } @article {5318, title = {Large mammal use of protected and community-managed lands in a biodiversity hotspot}, journal = {ANIMAL CONSERVATION}, volume = {19}, year = {2016}, month = {04/2016}, pages = {199-208}, abstract = {

In large parts of the biodiversity-rich tropics, various forest governance regimes often coexist, ranging from governmental administration to highly decentralized community management. Two common forms of such governance are protected areas, and community lands open to limited resource extraction. We studied wildlife occurrences in the north-east Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, where the Eaglenest Wildlife Sanctuary (EWS) is situated adjacent to community lands governed by the Bugun and Sherdukpen tribes. We conducted transect-based mammal sign surveys and camera trapping for mammals (\>0.5 kg), and interviewed members of the resident tribes to understand their hunting practices and causes of wildlife declines. Interviews indicated hunting-mediated declines in the abundances of mammals such as the tiger Panthera tigris, gaur Bos gaurus and river otters Lutrogale and Aonyx species. Larger species such as B. gaurus were much more abundant within EWS than outside of it. Community-managed lands harbored smaller bodied species, including some of conservation importance such as the red panda Ailurus fulgens, clouded leopard Neofelis nebulosa and golden cat Pardofelis temminckii. Our findings show that protected areas may have important non-substitutive values but adjoining community-managed lands may also have important conservation values for a different set of species.

}, doi = {10.1111/acv.12234}, author = {Velho, N and Srinivasan, U and Singh, P and Laurance, WF} }