Biology subjects

Jayapal, R.

Publications and source records attributed to Jayapal, R..

5 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2025

Effects of land-use intensification on nectar resources, bird assemblages and bird-flower interaction networks in the Western Ghats, India

1.Agricultural expansion is a major driver of tropical forest loss globally, making it critical to determine factors that maintain key plant-animal interactions, such as nectarivory, in human-dominated landscapes. In the Paleotropics, which is experiencing rapid expansion of tree crop plantations, few studies have compared floral and nectar-feeding bird communities, their interactions, and network organisation along a tree crop intensification gradient. In a cashew agriculture-forest matrix of the northern Western Ghats of India, we compared forests, cashew agroforests, and cashew monocultures to assess, 1) the abundance, diversity, and composition of flowers and nectar-feeding birds, 2) diversity of bird-flower interactions, and 3) network organisation. Floral abundance declined most sharply in monocultures, followed by agroforests. The abundance and diversity of nectar-feeding birds peaked in agroforests. Forests had the highest floral diversity and bird-flower interactions. Nectivore community composition differed across land-use types, with agroforests harbouring both forest specialists and open-habitat species typically found in monocultures. We found that sunbirds dominated plant-flower interactions across land-use types. After rarefaction (to control for differences in network size), agroforests and monocultures showed higher connectance, specialisation, and modularity than the forest network. Our results suggest that plantations that retain native trees (agroforests) can partially offset the alterations caused in floral resource availability and nectar-feeding bird communities by cashew cultivation. Planting bird-pollinated native tree species along orchard edges can make cashew farming more suitable for nectar-feeding birds, and has the potential to benefit cashew production by attracting avian pollinators.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2025

What's next for Indian Ornithology? 101 key research questions

India has a rich history of ornithology, and bird research in this field has expanded considerably in recent decades, spurred by a growing number of birdwatchers and ornithologists. Despite this progress, critical gaps remain. This paper highlights key areas where further research is needed and identifies pressing questions that will shape Indian ornithology in the coming years. Drawing from diverse inputs, we present a curated list of 101 research questions spanning across the various disciplines in ornithology - Natural History, Physiology and Disease Ecology, Behaviour, Population and Community Ecology, Habitat Ecology, Macroecology and Biogeography, Population Genetics and Evolution, Applied/Economic Ornithology and Conservation. The list was compiled through a multi-stage process, starting with a public open call for questions, followed by review and curation by a smaller panel of subject specialists. Each question was independently scored by a panel of experts based on three criteria: generality, novelty, and relevance. To account for variation in scoring styles, scores were normalised using Z-scores. The top 101 research questions were then selected based on these standardised scores. Each question is accompanied by an annotation that describes the significance of the question, and highlights opportunities to address it. While our list of research questions highlights significant research priorities, it is not intended to be exhaustive. Rather, it reflects the perspectives of those involved in its curation, who deemed these questions particularly relevant and impactful towards advancing Indian ornithology. We expect these questions to spark new project ideas among students, researchers, and citizen scientists, while guiding funders, managers, and policymakers toward priority research areas.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2024

Native trees within plantations and surrounding forest cover are essential for bird conservation in cashew-dominated landscapes within a biodiversity hotspot

O_LIAnnually, agriculture is responsible for about 60% of tropical forest loss globally. C_LIO_LIstrategies in agricultural landscapes range from enhancing farm-level habitat diversity to retaining forest cover within landscapes. A critical question is determining the relative influence of native trees within farms and forest cover around them on avian diversity, trait responses and species persistence in tree-based systems in landscapes where protected areas are often absent, often the case in lowland tropical forest ecosystems. C_LIO_LIBy sampling birds across gradients of cashew plantation intensification and varying levels of surrounding cashew and forest cover, we examined the relative influence of site- and landscape-level factors on species composition, taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic diversity, as well as species- and trait-specific responses, and whether phylogenetic relationships among bird species influenced these responses. C_LIO_LIAt the community level, forests, cashew agroforests, and cashew monocultures hosted compositionally different bird communities. Site-level variables, specifically the proportion of native trees, influenced taxonomic and phylogenetic diversity, while landscape-level variables had no effect. None of the predictor variables accounted for the variation in functional diversity. C_LIO_LIAt the species level, site-level variables, specifically the proportion of native trees, and landscape-level variables, particularly cashew cover around plantations, had positive and negative impacts on species responses, respectively. At the trait level, evergreen forest specialists were associated positively with the proportion of native trees and negatively associated with cashew cover. Resident species had a positive association with forest cover. We found a phylogenetic signal in species responses to predictor variables, indicating that closely-related species responded similarly to predictor variables. C_LIO_LISynthesis and applications: To retain taxonomic and phylogenetic diversity and ensure persistence of evergreen forest specialists, it is essential to retain native trees within cashew plantations and maintain surrounding forest cover. Future policies should incentivise the retention and restoration of forest patches and restrict the felling of native trees within cashew plantations. C_LI

ecology↗

bioRxiv2024

State of India's Birds 2023: A framework to leverage semi-structured citizen science for bird conservation

Birds and their habitats are threatened with extinction around the world. Regional assessments of the State of Birds are a vital means to prioritize data-driven conservation action by informing national and global policy. Such evaluations have traditionally relied on data derived from extensive, long-term, systematic surveys that require significant resources, limiting their feasibility to a few regions in the world. In the absence of such structured long-term datasets, semi-structured datasets have recently emerged as a promising alternative in other regions around the world. Semi-structured data are generated and uploaded by birdwatchers to citizen science platforms like eBird. Such data contain inherent biases because birdwatchers are not required to adhere to a fixed protocol. An evaluation of the status of birds from semi-structured data is therefore a difficult task that requires careful curation of data and the use of robust statistical methods to reduce errors and biases. In this paper, we present a methodology that was developed for this purpose, and was applied to produce the comprehensive State of Indias Birds (SoIB) 2023 report. SoIB 2023 assessed the status of 942 bird species in India by evaluating each species based on three metrics: 1) long-term change: change in abundance between the year 2022 and the year-interval pre-2000; 2) current annual trend: mean annual change in abundance from 2015 to 2022; and 3) distribution range size. We found evidence that 204 species have declined in the long term, and 142 species are currently declining. We present and discuss important insights about Indias birds that can guide research and conservation action in the region. We hope that the detailed methodology described here can act as a blueprint to produce State of Birds assessments from semi-structured citizen science datasets and springboard conservation action in many other regions where structured data is lacking but strong communities of birders exist. Open Research StatementThe primary data are already publicly available on eBird (Sullivan et al. 2014), and other data are already published in a GitHub repository (stateofindiasbirds 2024).

ecology↗

bioRxiv2021

Re-assessing the phylogenetic status and evolutionary relationship of Forest Owlet using genomic data

Phylogenetic relationships are often challenging to resolve in recent/younger lineage when only a few loci are used. Ultra Conserved Elements (UCE) are highly conserved regions across taxa that help resolve shallow and deep divergences. We utilized UCEs harvested from whole genomes to assess the phylogenetic position and taxonomic affiliation of an endangered endemic owlet in the family Strigidae - the Forest Owlet Athene blewitti. The taxonomic placement of this species has been revised multiple times. A multigene study attempted to address the question but showed a discrepancy across datasets in its placement of the species within genus Athene. We assembled a dataset of 5018 nuclear UCE loci with increased taxon sampling. Forest Owlet was found to be an early split from the Athene clade but sister to other Athene; and consistent across three approaches - maximum likelihood, bayesian, and the multispecies coalescence. Divergence dating using fossil calibrations suggest that the Athene lineage split from its ancestor about 7.6Mya, and the Forest Owlet diverged about 5.2Mya, consistent with previous multigene approaches. Despite osteological differences from other Athene, we suggest the placement of the Forest Owlet as a member of the Athene to emphasize its evolutionary relationship. Graphical Abstract O_FIG_DISPLAY_L [Figure 1] M_FIG_DISPLAY C_FIG_DISPLAY HIGHLIGHTSO_LIPhylogenomics using genome-wide nuclear markers yielded a well-supported topology for Athene and Glaucidium lineages. C_LIO_LIThree different methods of phylogenetic tree construction showed that Forest Owlet is an early split from all other Athene species. C_LIO_LIDivergence dating in the bayesian framework puts the Forest Owlet age between 5.0my to 5.5my. C_LI

evolutionary biology↗