Pronoy Baidya

• PhD- Ecology & Evolution
• Head of Division at Arannya Environment Research Organisation

A comprehensive review of the status of seabirds off the Goa coast is presented here. This is based on the results of five offshore seabird surveys organised by the Goa Bird Conservation Network; tracking of wind-blown, and coastal seabirds from social media platforms, and animal rescue groups; and a review of all available literature on the seabir...

An updated checklist of the birds of Goa, India, is presented below based upon a collation of supporting information from museum specimens, photographs, audio recordings of calls, and sight records with sufficient field notes. Goa has 473 species of birds of which 11 are endemic to the Western Ghats, 19 fall under various categories of the IUCN Red...

Protanilla flamma sp. n. from Goa, India is described, which is the thirteenth species in the genus Protanilla and the second record of this genus from the country. The new species morphologically appears close to P. lini Terayama, 2009 in terms of mandibular teeth count and the structure of petiolar and post-petiolar nodes. However, it can be very...

1. Understanding how biodiversity is distributed is increasingly becoming important under ongoing and projected human land use. Measures of beta diversity, and its partitions, can offer insights for conservation and restoration of biodiversity. 2. We ask how different species, functional groups, and land use contribute to beta diversity, and whethe...

Grazing by large mammalian herbivores influences ecosystem structure and functions through its impacts on vegetation and soil, as well as by the influence on other animals such as arthropods. As livestock progressively replace native grazers around the world, it is pertinent to ask whether they have comparable influence over arthropods, or not. We...

Threatened Birds of Goa provides an overview on status of globally threatened birds reported from the state. This book depends on global information available in scientific literature, interpretations of historical information derived from more than 40 years of Heinz Lainer’s birding notes and current bird community structure across Goa from the Go...

Tapinoma onaele sp. nov. from the Kodagu region of the Western Ghats, India, is described as the fourth species in the Tapinoma lugubre species group. This species is morphologically close to Tapinoma himalaicum Bharti et al., 2013, as both have long scapes and deep and concave anteromedial clypeal margins. However, it differs from T. himalaicum in...

Diversity-function relationships in producers, and how these are influenced by consumers, are well known. However, these are not well known for microbial decomposers in soil. It is also unknown whether and how consumers such as large mammalian herbivores influence soil microbial decomposer diversity-function relationships. We used a 14-year-old her...

Diversity-function relationships are well established for producers and their productivity. They are also evident among consumers. However, these are not well known for microbial decomposers and decomposition processes in soil. Further, it also remains unknown whether and how consumers, such as large mammalian herbivores who are a major feature acr...

Land-use and climate change are known to be the greatest threat to biodiversity. The effects of both are even more pronounced in the fragile high-elevation trans-Himalayas and there is an urgent need to understand how biodiversity is being affected in this ecosystem as a consequence of human induced land-use and climate change. To study this, we us...

The Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) is a regulatory framework adopted since 1994 in India to evaluate the impact and mitigation measures of projects, however, even after 25 years of adoption, EIAs continue to be of inferior quality with respect to biodiversity documentation and assessment of impacts and their mitigation measures. This questions...

The poster explains how a quantitative survey of birds from Cotigao Wildlife Sanctuary was undertaken through participation of volunteer birdwatchers from Goa, local community and forest guards of the Goa Forest Department. This exercise was helpful to monitor bird population and collect data that could be used to direct management programs within...

Background/Question/Methods Understanding the patterns of how biodiversity is distributed has been a central question in ecology. Need to understand this has gained priority in recent times due to an accelerated human induced land-use change leading to global declines in biodiversity. To understand these patterns of biodiversity distribution, beta-...

A more anthropocentric approach in recent times has modified our natural world drastically with human land use patterns dictating many of the observable patterns in our surroundings. One-third of terrestrial ecosystem are grazing ecosystems, a potential carbon (C) sink. Grazing ecosystems could be natural (native herbivores) or managed (livestock)....

This technical report presents the results of the All Goa Waterbird Count 2018 and analyses the status of Goa's migratory duck population over the past three decades.

Long-term Bird Monitoring Program has been initiated jointly by Goa Forest Department and Goa Bird Conservation Network. The first phase has been implemented in Cotigao Wildlife Sanctuary, situated in Cancona taluka of Goa. The monitoring program has been implemented as a set of three surveys covering three distinct seasons of the state viz. Post-M...

Species richness, and seasonal variation of birds were studied in Pondicherry University campus between February 2014 and February 2015. The data from the fall migration season of 2014 were compared with data from 2004 to understand the decadal changes in the bird diversity of the campus. A total of 96 species were recorded during the course of the...

With recent updates in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species (also known as the IUCN Red List or Red Data List) the number of birds, so classified and found in Goa have increased. As of August 2015 we have 33 species of birds which have been classified into four categories.