Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment

(Dr.T. Ganesh and Dr. D.R.Priyadarsanan)

Tropical secondary forests are most likely to be a dominant feature in tropical landscapes of the future. The expansion of degraded and abandoned lands in deforested landscapes has important implications for the long-term conservation of tropical biodiversity. The forest canopies are the most dominant feature of these landscapes and yet our current knowledge base about its importance for the bird and small mammal communities is inadequate.

To address this lacuna we have established semi-permanent sampling stations (platforms) in the canopies of primary and secondary forests in KMTR. These platforms are used to make observations on bird and small mammal ecology and behaviour. We also quantify resources availability (fruits, flowers and insects) in the canopy. This will help elucidate the effects of disturbance and change of habitat structure on the target taxa.

This study is a first of its kind for India, where birds and small mammals have been studied from the canopy and to use the single rope technique to access the canopies (SRT) on a large spatial scale. The inadequacies of using traditional ground-based methods have been brought to light. The differential response by the bird and small mammal assemblages to change in forest structure has been highlighted.

Along with primary rainforest habitat, secondary forests too have a role in biodiversity conservation as they can acts as refugia, provide seasonal resources, offset species loss and provide landscape connectivity.

This study was funded by The Department of Science and Technology, GOI. We acknowledge the support of the Tamil Nadu Forest Department and Tamil Nadu Electricity Board.