Ecology of the birds of the high altitude grassland-shola forests
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Date
2001
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College of Forestry, Vellanikkara
Abstract
The shola forests are unique montane vegetation
occupying temperate habitats in tropical latitudes and
are regarded as relict communities. These forests are
high altitude gallery forests restricted to valleys,
depressions and especially along folds of hills and
watercourses. The shola-grassland ecosystem is unique
vegetation type found in Western Ghats. Unfortunately
very few studies have been conducted on the fauna and
flora of this unique ecosystem, particularly avifauna. A
study was conducted to give some insight into the birds
of the shola-grassland ecosystem and their association
with the vegetation of the high altitude area.
The study was conducted at the Mannavan Shola of the
Marayur range, Munnar division Kerala (10° 10' to 10° 12'
N latitudes and 77° 09' to 77° 12' E longitudes), which is
the largest shola forest area of the Kerala State. Two
study sites were identified in the study area, such as
"Shola upper" and "Shola lower". The distance sampling
method was used in equidistant points identified at each
study sites in a 1000 m transect and the points were periodically
monitored. Apart from the birds the vegetation structure of the study location was also
studied to understand whether there is any relationship occur between the birds and the vegetation.
Total of 41 species in 8 orders and 17 families
have been reported from the Mannavan Shola. This includes
26 species of resident birds, out of which 8 are endemic
to Western Ghats, and 7 species that are long distance
migrants. The different measures like the richness, the and the diversity indices,
difference. evenness locations shown any significant the two study The
similarity indices worked out were also shown that the both sites are much similar. It was also found that the
most abundant bird species were the denser species also.
The correlation study shown that, bird species richness, bird diversity and bird density correlated
negatively with different structural parameters of the vegetation.
Another notable observation was that the high altitude grassland dependant species were totally absent from the study sites.
This could be owing to the conversion of the grasslands in the study site to wattle plantation.
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