Kalya Subasinghe

University of Kelaniya · Department of Zoology and Environmental Management

Although many studies have examined changes to overall species composition and diversity of birds following the conversion of natural forests into forest plantations, only a few have examined changes to functional trait compositions. The present study investigated the functional trait responses to the conversion of natural forests to forest plantat...

Microplastics (MPs), defined as plastic particles less than 5 mm, are increasingly recognized as a global environmental threat impacting marine and terrestrial ecosystems. This study investigates the prevalence, distribution and characteristics of MPs in the lagoon and coastal sediments of Muthurajawela Wildlife Sanctuary and Pamunugama Beach in Sr...

The Indian peafowl (Pavo cristatus), traditionally native to arid regions of Sri Lanka, has recently been observed migrating to wetter areas, raising concerns about potential crop damage in the Southern Province. This study investigates the spatial variation in Indian peafowl density across the croplands of the Galle, Matara, and Hambantota distric...

Forest plantations play a crucial role in meeting timber requirements. However, concerns have been raised about the potential of forest plantations, particularly exotic monoculture plantations, to support native biodiversity. This study provides insights to enhance breeding bird diversity in an exotic monoculture pinus (Pinus caribaea) plantation i...

Morphology is integral to body temperature regulation. Recent advances in understanding of thermal physiology suggest a role of the avian bill in thermoregulation. To explore the adaptive significance of bill size for thermoregulation we characterized relationships between bill size and climate extremes. Most previous studies focused on climate mea...

Phenotypic trait data play a central role in ecology and evolutionary research. The quality of trait data, and the findings of subsequent analyses, depend on the quality of measurement. However, most studies overlook measurement accuracy in their study designs. We investigated the repeatability of five frequently used linear measurements of avian t...

Diversity of marcobenthic community in a tropical tidal flat, Mannar, Sri Lanka. Subasinghe K.*, Sumanapala A. P. & W. U. Chandrasekara Department of Zoology and Environmental Management, University of Kelaniya, Kelaniya GQ 11600, Sri Lanka *Corresponding author (email: kalya@kln.ac.lk) The northwest coast of Sri Lanka supports a variety of high...

Utilization of wood ash as a partial substitution for cement is one of the promising method to increase the strength and thermal insulation for cement blocks. The present study focused to use wood ash as a partial replacement for cement material during sand cement block manufacturing. The concrete mixtures have been mixed with 10%, 15% 20% and 25%...

The consequence of forest conversion into human land-use systems on tropical biodiversity is needed to be assessed in order to initiate proper conservation and management strategies. In this study the bird species diversity and composition were characterized along with the vegetation structural components in four land-use types in Northern Flank of...

The Knuckles Mountain Forest Range (KMFR) has a complex mosaic of natural and human modified habitats and the contribution of these habitats to the biological and functional diversities has not been deeply studied. Present study investigated both of these diversities in five habitat types (two natural habitats: Sub-montane forest and Pitawala Patan...