Avantika Thapa

Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment | ATREE · Department of Ecology

Human-wildlife interactions can range from reverence to extreme conflict. Conservationists have come to the realization that humans and wildlife have always coexisted together in shared landscapes across the globe. Thus, understanding and acting upon the prospects of human-wildlife coexistence (HWCo) is now a crucial component of biodiversity conse...

Pheasants are a charismatic group of birds that have cultural, ecological, and conservation significance as they are mentioned in numerous folklores, they are indicators of healthy ecosystems and have restricted dispersal abilities in comparison to flying birds. They are also one of the least studied taxa probably due to their elusive nature and in...

Ground-dwelling birds are one of the most vulnerable taxa. These birds are also under-studied and therefore constitute the lesser-known group of aves. Understanding their patterns of resource selection and their relationship with the composites of their habitat is a prerequisite for ensuring the effectiveness of future conservation efforts. Hill pa...

Indian hare Lepus nigricollis have a vast distribution in southern Asia with several subspecies. Even though it is distributed in a large area, the species lacks regional assessment and has been understudied for taxonomy, ecology, and demography. The species is stated to be absent from the high reaches of the Himalayas; however, several records rev...

Chinese pangolin (Manis pentadactyla) has experienced a rapid population decline across its distribution range mainly due to illegal harvesting for scale and local consumption for meat. We monitored 65 burrows of free‐ranging pangolins and collected 147 fecal droppings from five sites in the Darjeeling district of Northwest Bengal in the central Hi...

A review on the geographical distribution of Rufous-throated wren babbler in the Indian Himalayan Region was made based on photographic documentation and available scientific literature. Rufous-throated wren babbler is endemic to Eastern Himalayas and inhabits the dense undergrowth of forests in the Indian states of Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim and No...

Large forested landscapes often harbour significant amount of biodiversity and support human society by rendering various livelihood opportunities and ecosystem services. Their periodic assessment for health and ecological integrity is essential for timely mitigation of any negative impact of human use due to over harvesting of natural resources or...

The very low encounter rate calculated by this study as 0.089/ km even in its historically known suitable habitat justifies the conservation status of Rufous-throated wren-babbler as ‘Near Threatened’ and may get upgraded to ‘Vulnerable’ if the current rate of habitat loss persists.

The present study aims to explore the mammalian diversity of Darjeeling district using camera traps along with questionnaire survey in protected area (PA) and non- protected area (Non-PA). We also attempted to understand the influence of habitat variables on mammalian species richness using the generalized linear mixed models (GLMM). A total of 30...

Hangul (Cervus hanglu hanglu), the only red deer subspecies surviving in the Indian subcontinent, is of top conservation priority with global importance. Unfortunately, it has lost much of its historical distribution range, and it is now confined to Dachigam landscape within the Kashmir valley of India. The Government of India initiated a recovery...

In a macroecological approach, we have used the data abundant species or archetypal cohorts as proxies for the data deficient species, to model their distributions. Upon successful modelling, we assessed climate change impacts on their distribution in the Himalayan arc extending from the Indian borders in the west to the hills in Myanmar. Out of 29...

Distribution modelling and climate change risk assessment strategy for rare Himalayan Galliformes species using archetypal data abundant cohorts for adaptation planning, Climate Risk Management (2020), doi: https://doi.

The depletion of natural habitat, driven by human activities, and changes in climatic conditions are the most pronounced threat to biodiversity, resulting in massive range contractions and extinction of species (Pimm et al. 2014; He et al. 2018). The natural habitat of the Indian Peafowl consists of scrub-jungle of forest edges in sub-tropical and...

Large carnivores that occur in low densities, particularly in the high-altitude areas are globally threatened because of habitat loss and anthropogenic disturbances. Among the eight bear species, brown bear has the largest distribution range, where the Himalayan brown bear distribution is restricted to Himalayan high lands with relatively small and...