Dinesh Bhatt

Dinesh Bhatt
Gurukula Kangri (Deemed to be University) Haridwar

Doctor of Philosophy

About

110
Publications
62,180
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Introduction
Our Lab has been working in the field of behavioural ecology, particularly acoustic communication and breeding ecology of Indian birds since 1995. We have been focusing on different aspects of birds’ life such as nesting, territorial behaviour, nesting success, characterization and sociobiological significance of acoustic signals using different Indian bird models such as Oriental magpie robin, Pied bush chat, Indian chat, Purple sunbird, Ashy prinia etc.

Publications

Publications (110)
Article
The Himalayan ranges are well-known biological diversity hotspot. This attempt has been made to prepare the first avifaunal checklist of the Narendra Nagar Forest division, Tehri Garhwal, Uttarakhand, a part of the Western Himalaya, India, from October 2020 to December 2022. A total of 177 avian species belonging to 50 families were observed. Among...
Article
Full-text available
Unprecedented seasonal forest fires pose a significant threat to the carbon stocks of diverse ecosystems, particularly in regions like Uttarakhand, west Himalaya. Understanding the impact of varying fire frequencies on different forest types is crucial for effective conservation and management strategies. This study aims to assess the loss of carbo...
Article
A GIS-based approach was used in this study to assess 10 years of land-use change in the lower Shivalik landscape of the Western Himalayas, India. The landscape encompasses two major protected areas which are home to a thriving population of large mammals. The main objective was to identify the changes in the land use pattern, specifically after fo...
Article
Full-text available
We indexed 8,970 scientific publications on forest fires in order to bridge the gap between research and policy discussions on forest fires. Journal articles and conference papers dominated the literature, with an emphasis on environmental science, agricultural and biological sciences, earth and planetary sciences, engineering, and computer science...
Article
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Biological invasion is regarded as one of the most important disturbance parameters and threats for sustaining biodiversity. Global warming, industrialization, and open niche created due to the expansion of development initiatives contribute to the successful spread of invasive species around the world. The contributions of various biotic and abiot...
Article
The population of the Indian Skimmer (Rynchops albicollis) has declined sharply due to the habitat distraction by different anthropogenic disturbances, and consequently, this species has recently been categorised as endangered. The article presents the first photographic record about the presence of two individuals of the Indian Skimmer in the Gang...
Article
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Booted Warbler Iduna caligata is known for wintering in the southern part of India. It is recorded for the first time from trans-Himalaya, Ladakh. The present record of this species extends its distributional range up to the south-eastern part of Ladakh, Hanle Village. In the present article, detailed diagnostic photographs and a distributional map...
Article
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Eurasian Magpie Pica pica is one of the well-studied corvids, but the majority of our understanding of this species is from Europe. In India, its distribution is restricted to some valleys of Ladakh such as the northwestern part of the Indus, Nubra, Zanskar, Drass, and Suru. The present study aimed at understanding the territorial behavior of this...
Article
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The objective of this study was to investigate the impact of forest fires on tree diversity and their regeneration in three fire-prone forests of Uttarakhand, India. We used Landsat 5, 7, and 8 satellite imagery to prepare fire frequency maps and the study area was divided into four fire frequency classes. Ten plots were marked in each fire frequen...
Article
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One of the fascinating aspects of the life of birds is their breeding phase and for the success of the breeding propitious season and a safe nesting site is required. In the present study, data have been collected about the onset of breeding, nest-site selection, clutch size, incubation period, hatching success, provisioning period, predation press...
Article
Full-text available
The breeding success of an avian species depends upon its ability to select a safe nesting site and favorable season. In this study, an attempt was made to understand the breeding behavior of P. jocosus in the suburbanized habitat of Haridwar, Uttarakhand foothills of the Indian Himalayas from March to June 2022. In the study area, the breeding sea...
Article
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Species distribution models (SDMs), such as Maxent, are often used to estimate the occurrence of species. This useful tool was created to integrate the observed abundance/occurrence of species and environmental predictors to predict species distributions and environmental suitability across geographic space and the effects of climatic factors on po...
Article
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Recent studies have indicated a significant decline in the population of the house sparrow (Passer domesticus L.) at the global level. In India also, the house sparrow population is being drastically decreased. Considering the issue, an attempt has been made to monitor the current status of house sparrows across Dehradun City of Uttarakhand from 20...
Article
Full-text available
Flocking behavior of Eurasian Magpie Pica pica was studied, at three different locations in Kargil district, Ladakh, during April 2019 to December 2020. The average flock size was 6.37±0.23 (n=202) individuals per flock. The mean flock size during spring season was 6.53±0.38 (n=60), while it was lower in the summer season 3.89±0.12 (n=68) and highe...
Article
Spatial modelling has been an essential tool for predicting and mapping the suitable areas of a species' habitat. Ecological modelling was performed using 744 sampling locations to predict the potential habitat for the invasive plant Lantana camara in the lower Shivalik region of the Western Himalaya, India. The modelling engaged nine bioclimatic,...
Article
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The Uttarakhand State of India is rich in forest wealth with 45.4% forest cover (India State of Forest Report (2021). However, forest cover may change due to a number of anthropogenic and environmental factors. One of the factors leading to forest degradation is forest fires. Forest fires are related to factors that may be biotic, such as heavy acc...
Article
Full-text available
Present study was aimed to document the breeding behaviour of the Eurasian Magpie Pica pica bactriana from Ladakh. Information is scanty on the nesting and reproductive biology of this species in Ladakh. Field work was carried out from March 2019 to May 2021 at two study locations in the Kargil area of Ladakh. Breeding season of Eurasian Magpie is...
Article
Full-text available
The present study deals with the observation of avifauna in the Natural habitat and their adjoining areas of Harbhajwala in Dehradun, Uttarakhand. The study was carried out between December 2018 to October 2020. We observed 114 bird species, belonging to 50 families during the study period. Out of these 97 residents and 19 winters, migratory specie...
Chapter
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The Chapter is about the importance of some of the wetlands of Uttarakhand as a wintering habitat for the water birds.
Chapter
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The current study was conducted to (i) compare the structure of avian communities in the forest and urbanized habitats along different sections of the altitudinal gradient and (ii) know to what extent the bird communities are different between habitat types and along different sections of the altitudinal gradient in some parts of Western Himalayas...
Article
Full-text available
The present study documents the first sightings of the migratory Pallas’s Gull at two different locations (Cholamu Lake and Singtam Valley) in the eastern Himalayan state of Sikkim in India. We recommend that long term surveys are required to determine and establish the distribution and status of the species in the state.
Article
Full-text available
The Western Himalaya is recognised for its biological diversity and ecological values. An attempt was made to understand the avian diversity distribution in Forest, Agriculture and Water stream habitats of Dehradun (Western Himalaya) Uttarakhand. A total of two hundred and thirty one species belonging to 54 families were encountered during the surv...
Article
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Swamp deer (Rucervus duvaucelii) is a large cervid confined to isolated patches in the wet grasslands of Himalayan foothills and dry grasslands of central India. There are currently three accepted subspecies of swamp deer: R. duvaucelii duvaucelii, R. duvaucelii branderi and R. duvaucelii ranjitsinhi, based on their distribution range, habitat pref...
Article
Full-text available
The wild animals cause losses to agriculture crop yields. The present study focuses on the assessment of agricultural damage caused by these wild animals in villages adjacent to protected areas and located in Najibabad forest division in Bijnor (Uttar Pradesh). The results showed that elephant (Elephas maximus) is the most problematic animal respon...
Preprint
Invasive alien species are one of the most significant threats to biodiversity of the earth ecosystem. Spatial modeling has played a vital role in predicting and mapping the suitable areas of the species habitat for management implementation. Lantana camara is one of the ten worst invasive weed enlisted by IUCN., and has its distribution in more th...
Article
Full-text available
The human-wildlife conflict is one of the serious problems faced by people living in forest fringe villages. This has been a major problem since ages especially for the people residing near the wildlife protected areas but the problem has aggravated over the period of time. After the mid 19th century, it is being considered as a major problem, affe...
Article
Full-text available
Conflicts between humans and monkeys are recognized among major issues related to human-wildlife conflict. Today, human-monkey conflict has garnered the global attention as over the years it has become a serious concern. The present study was done in the human dominated landscape of Najibabad forest division (NFD). The data were collected from 2015...
Article
Full-text available
The Uttarakhand Himalaya has rich and diverse forests; but in the recent decades fire has become a regular phenomenon in Uttarakhand. Every year the Chir Pine forests face forest fire. Research carried out by various authors pointed out that pine needles are highly inflammable and prone to fire due to several anthropogenic factors. This paper prese...
Article
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Migration is the seasonal habitual movement, exhibited by many avian species along a flyway from breeding to wintering grounds and vice versa all over the world. Migratory birds are very sensitive to even small changes in water level which may be affected by flood or drought on their breeding and wintering grounds. High rains during monsoon season...
Article
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Bengal florican (Houbaropsis bengalensis) is an important species of the three bustard present in Indian subcontinent. It is critically endangered bustard of the family otididae. Bengal Florican is a medium size about 60 cm size at standing position bustard its basically ground niche. The Bengal florican (Houbaropsis bengalensis) basically preferre...
Chapter
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Avifauna is one of the successful diverse and evolutionary groups and occurs in the tropics in large numbers as compared to temperate zone. Fluctuation in the diversity of birds provides early warning of environmental problems. The threats to their community structure due to various reasons. Agricultural pesticides have been shown to affect 87 perc...
Article
Taxa classified as subspecies may in fact be cryptic species. We assessed the taxonomic status of the Blue‐throated Flycatcher Cyornis rubeculoides complex in India, which consists of several forms with similar plumages and song. We used mitochondrial and nuclear DNA, plumage traits, and detailed song analysis to ascertain the taxonomic status of t...
Poster
Full-text available
Regardless of the availability of around 1300 avian species, long term studies on breeding ecology and singing behavior of majority of species from the Indian subcontinent in their natural environment are insufficient and scanty. In this study, an attempt has been made to work on some aspects of breeding ecology and singing behavior of a resident a...
Article
Full-text available
The oriental magpie robin (Copsychus saularis) (OMR) is a well-known tropical songbird in which males deliver two categories of songs, namely discrete song and continuous song. Discrete songs are delivered throughout the breeding season during different times of the day, while continuous songs are delivered occasionally during courtship behaviour,...
Poster
Full-text available
A number of wetlands of Uttarakhand (Western Himalayas), India, are of great importance as staging and wintering areas for a wide variety of water fowl. In order to know the status of a particular species at the global level, monitoring of the population distribution of that species at the regional level is important. In this context, an attempt ha...
Article
Full-text available
The anthropogenic disturbances to the wildlife are becoming a major focus of the concerned wild life authorities across the globe. Data regarding human wildlife conflict in the rural area of five forest ranges of Najibabad forest division (Rajgarh, Sahanpur, Kauria, Sahuwala and Badhapur) under district Bijnor of Uttar Pradesh, India was collected...
Article
Full-text available
We investigated singing patterns of Pied Bush Chat across years and nesting cycles. We recorded the seasonal singing activity of 25 males in their natural habitats in Haridwar, Himalayan foothills, India for three consecutive years. The vocal patterns, especially song repertoire size of males, remained largely constant and this restricted annual va...
Article
Full-text available
We studied the relationship between song repertoire size, territorial behavior, and nesting success in Pied Bush Chat (Saxicola caprata) in Haridwar (Himalayan foothills), India for three consecutive years (2013-2015). Our findings indicate song repertoire size is correlated with nesting success, but pre-nesting territory size, average territory si...
Article
Full-text available
Climatic factors which prevail during the breeding season of avian species in spring and early summer may trigger the onset of singing behaviour in songbirds. To understand the effect of climatic variables on the onset of dawn song chorus, we conducted a study in the natural habitats of a tropical songbird, the Pied Bush Chat Saxicola caprata in Ha...
Article
Discrimination between neighbours and strangers, on the basis of acoustic cues, has been clearly demonstrated in many temperate avian species, but experiments on neighbour-stranger recognition have received less attention in tropical habitats, particularly in the Indian subcontinent. With this in mind, neighbour—stranger discrimination experiments...
Article
Full-text available
The purpose of bird song and the way in which it is delivered has been argued to be adapted mainly for territorial defense. We performed a field experiment with the combination of playbacks and a model to test how much song actually relates to increased territorial defense in the territorial tropical songbird, the Pied Bush Chat, during breeding se...
Article
Full-text available
The swamp deer (Rucervus duvaucelii) occurs, primarily, in the wet grasslands of the Himalayan foothills as well as the dry grasslands of central India. Three subspecies have been identified, namely R. duvaucelii duvaucelii, R. duvaucelii branderi and R. duvaucelii ranjitsinhi. Degradation of grassland habitats led to a drastic decline in the total...
Article
Full-text available
Puspitaningtyas DM. 2017. Orchid inventory in Bantimurung-Bulusaraung National Park, South Sulawesi, Indonesia. Biodiversitas 18: 341-350. Bantimurung-Bulusaraung National Park, commonly abbreviated as Babul National Park, is in South Sulawesi. It occupies an area of 43,750 hectares between 119o34'17"-119o55'13" East and 4o42'49"-5o06'42" South. Ba...
Article
Full-text available
We describe six sets of primers for amplifying the mitochondrial control region (CR) of various bird species belonging to nine families of the order Passeriformes. These overlapping primers, with both short and long fragments, yielded an approximately 1 kb fragment of the CR. The short length of the amplified product makes the primers suitable for...
Article
Full-text available
We describe six novel ungulate-specific conserved primers for sequencing the complete mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase I (COI) gene of selected threatened species from degraded samples for effective conservation planning. These primers amplified 301–1599 bp DNA fragments in various combinations. The method described may assist in the sequencing o...
Article
Full-text available
Most animals that demonstrate parental care are also engaged in such behaviour that increases their offspring chance of survival when confronted by a predator. The present study is equipped with a detailed account of the parental investment in nest defence behaviour of a tropic zone (Haridwar, Himalayan foothills, India) inhabiting species, the Pie...
Article
Full-text available
The PREDICTS project—Projecting Responses of Ecological Diversity In Changing Terrestrial Systems (www.predicts.org.uk)—has collated from published studies a large, reasonably representative database of comparable samples of biodiversity from multiple sites that differ in the nature or intensity of human impacts relating to land use. We have used t...
Data
Full-text available
Figure S1: Database schema. Diversity data in yellow, GIS data in green and Catalogue of Life data in blue. The diversity tables datasource, study, site, measuredtaxon and diversitymeasurement follow the structure described in ‘Methods’ in the main text and in Hudson et al. (2014): a datasource is associated with one or more study records, each of...
Data
The PREDICTS project—Projecting Responses of Ecological Diversity In Changing Terrestrial Systems (www.predicts.org.uk)—has collated from published studies a large, reasonably representative database of comparable samples of biodiversity from multiple sites that differ in the nature or intensity of human impacts relating to land use. We have used t...
Article
Full-text available
The PREDICTS project—Projecting Responses of Ecological Diversity In Changing Terrestrial Systems (www.predicts.org.uk)—has collated from published studies a large, reasonably representative database of comparable samples of biodiversity from multiple sites that differ in the nature or intensity of human impacts relating to land use. We have used t...
Article
Full-text available
Information on the nesting success of birds in the Indian subcontinent is almost negligible. In the present study factors affecting nesting success were studied over four years (i.e. 2011–2014) in a color ringed population of the oriental magpie robin (OMR) in an urban habitat of Haridwar district (29°55′N, 78°08′E), Uttarakhand, India. Objectives...
Article
Full-text available
The present study documents the first sightings of the migratory Pallas’s Gull at two different locations (Cholamu Lake and Singtam Valley) in the eastern Himalayan state of Sikkim in India. We recommend that long term surveys are required to determine and establish the distribution and status of the species in the state.
Technical Report
A dataset of 3,250,404 measurements, collated from 26,114 sampling locations in 94 countries and representing 47,044 species. The data were collated from 480 existing spatial comparisons of local-scale biodiversity exposed to different intensities and types of anthropogenic pressures, from terrestrial sites around the world. The database was assemb...
Chapter
Full-text available
Although no comprehensive data are available, a number of wetlands of Uttarakhand are of great importance as staging and wintering areas for a wide variety of water fowl. In this paper, an attempt has been made to compare and provide the current population status of migratory avifauna from some wetlands/reservoirs of Uttarakhand viz., Asan barrage,...
Chapter
Full-text available
Although no comprehensive data are available, a number of wetlands of Uttarakhand are of great importance as staging and wintering areas for a wide variety of waterfowl. In this paper, an attempt has been made to compare and provide the current population status of migratory avifauna from some wetlands/reservoirs of Uttarakhand, viz., Asan Barrage,...
Article
Full-text available
We assessed diverse avian population during February 2013 to February 2014 at Doon valley forest. During study period we recorded total of 218 species (18982 individuals) belonging to 50 families using line transect along with fixed radius point count method in the study area. Avian species diversity, richness and abundance showed the hump shaped d...
Research
Full-text available
The article presents the first sighting records of Steppe Eagle between years 2012 and 2014 from the Lansdowne forest division, Uttarakhand, Western Himalayas, India. These data indicates that the species is a winter migrant in the region.
Article
This paper discusses the status and nature of human-animal conflicts with special reference to leopard (Panthera pardus Linnaeus, 1758), elephant (Elephas maximus Linnaeus, 1758), black bear (Ursus thibetanus Cuvier, 1823) and wild boar (Sus scrofa Linnaeus, 1758) in the worst affected villages lying in the vicinity of Lansdowne forest division, Ut...
Article
In most oscine passerine bird species, male song is composed of different song types of which some are shared with other males. Our aim for this study was to investigate whether song sharing occurs in the pied bush chat (a tropical species with multiple song types), and if so, whether neighbouring males share significantly more song types than non-...
Article
Full-text available
Prevalent notion about thyroid hormones is that thyroxine (T4) is a mere precursor and physiological effects of thyroid hormones are elicited by tri-iodothyronine (T3) after mono-deiodination of T4. Earlier studies on feather regeneration and molt done on spotted munia L. punctulata suggest that T4 (mono-deiodination suppressed by iopanoic acid and...
Article
Full-text available
This study of bird species diversity aims at understanding the distribution patterns and structures of avifauna of the two forest ranges and adjoining suburban areas of the Lansdowne forest division, Uttarakhand, India. Data on the abundance and richness were collected by standardized Venter's line transect method for two years (January 2011 to Dec...
Article
Full-text available
In order to develop ornithological science, collection and interpretation of field data on different aspects of birds' life are considered imperative. In this study, attempts have been made to understand the breeding behaviour of the Oriental Magpie Robin (Copsychus saularis), a tropical song bird. Observations were made on 27 pairs (of which 9 mal...
Article
Full-text available
The present study were made to estimate the avian fauna in terms of species richness and diversity and guild structure in forest habitats of Nainital district of Uttarakhand (350–2.450 m asl; 29° N). Field studies were conducted during January 2007 to December 2008. Total 43, 62 and 42 species were recorded from, Haldwani, Bhowali and Nainital fore...
Article
Full-text available
This paper aims to study the structure and pattern of dawn song in a tropical avian species, the Pied Bush Chat (Saxicola caprata) in Haridwar (290 55’ N, 780 08’ E; Uttarakhand, India) in 2009. Males delivered complex dawn chorus on daily basis during only breeding season (February to July). The dawn song bout was made up of a number of distinct s...
Article
Songbirds have been regarded as an important model system in the field of animal communication focusing mainly on songs by male birds. However, the occurrence, structure and sociobiological significance of song in female birds have been a long-neglected field. We describe here the structure and context of female song in a tropical avian species, th...
Article
Acoustic signals in birds may be classified in two categories: song and call. Songs are mostly used by males and play important role in territorial establishment and mate attraction during breeding season. In contrast, calls are generally used by both sexes to meet out immediate requirements throughout the year. The present study deals with the phy...
Article
Full-text available
In the Indian subcontinent there is hardly any study that compares the bird community structure of urban/suburban areas with those of forest habitat. The present survey identified diverse assemblages of birds in the Pauri district at different elevations. A total of 125 bird species belonging to 40 families including two least count species (Lophur...
Article
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Article
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We studied hatching success of Red-wattled Lapwing Vanellus indicus in ground- and roof-nests during 2006-07 in rural and suburban habitats of district Haridwar (29°55'N 78°08'E), Uttarakhand state, India. The mean number of eggs that hatched successfully per nest in roofnests (2.2± 1.2) was significantly higher than in the ground-nests (1.0± 1.5)....
Article
Full-text available
The Indian subcontinent is amongst the biologically better known parts of the tropics and its bird fauna has been well documented. However, avian community composition and diversity along elevational gradients and amongst habitat types remains unclear in India. We attempted to estimate bird assemblages in terms of diversity, species composition, st...
Article
To determine the influence of pairing status on dawn singing behaviour in pied bush chats Saxicola caprata, we conducted mate removal experiments across eight territories. The experiment was divided into three stages: pre-removal (pairs were present on their respective territories), removal (females were experimentally removed), and returned (femal...
Article
Full-text available
Several aspects of the breeding biology of wild birds have been studied thoroughly. However, information on patterns of egg laying is lacking for most passerines species. Using direct observations of individuals of Indian Robins (Saxicoloides fulicata), we documented the timing and duration of egg laying and behaviour of males and females around th...