The road from distribution to diversity
The overall goal of our work is to understand patterns of diversity through disentangling the drivers of distribution. Much of our work has been focussed on the Western Ghats, but we have also carried out projects on inter-tidal fauna on the east and west coasts of India. Sneha Vijaykumar worked on bird distributions in the Western Ghats, and used a range of methods from distribution modelling to multi-variate analysis to determine which environmental variables most influenced the distribution of over 100 species of birds. Navendu Page collected primary data on 450 species on evergreen woody plants across the Western Ghats, and examined patterns of beta diversity as well as the relative influence of environment and space on species composition. Kesang Bhutia is now planning to study how traits influence distribution and range size of woody plants in the WG. In addition to generating primary datasets to examine these questions, we also build models which combine environment, range and evolution.
The overall goal of our work is to understand patterns of diversity through disentangling the drivers of distribution. Much of our work has been focussed on the Western Ghats, but we have also carried out projects on inter-tidal fauna on the east and west coasts of India. Sneha Vijaykumar worked on bird distributions in the Western Ghats, and used a range of methods from distribution modelling to multi-variate analysis to determine which environmental variables most influenced the distribution of over 100 species of birds. Navendu Page collected primary data on 450 species on evergreen woody plants across the Western Ghats, and examined patterns of beta diversity as well as the relative influence of environment and space on species composition. Kesang Bhutia is now planning to study how traits influence distribution and range size of woody plants in the WG. In addition to generating primary datasets to examine these questions, we also build models which combine environment, range and evolution.
Projects
- Addressing the ‘Wallacean Shortfall’ for small vertebrates in the Western Ghats across space and time, 2009-2013, Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund (CEPF). (S.P. Vijayakumar)
- Avian Frugivores: Understanding patterns of range and richness in the Western Ghats, 2012-2015, Department of Science and Technology (DST), (Sneha Vijaykumar).
- Macro-scale patterns in species distribution of the intertidal benthic communities along the mainland coast of India and establishment of an indicator based long-term monitoring protocol, 2011-2013, Ministry of Environment and Forests (MOEF). (Naveen Namboothri).
- Assessing the status and distribution of endemic and threatened trees of the Western Ghats, 2011-2012, Rufford Foundation UK, (Navendu Page),
- Avian Frugivores – understanding determinants of distribution and diversity in the Western Ghats, 2010-2011, Rufford Foundation UK, (Sneha Vijaykumar).
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