Shivam Shrotriya

• Doctor of Philosophy
• Project Scientist at Wildlife Institute of India

Perpetual darkness, high humidity with almost constant geophysical factors are some of the abiotic factors which make the cave ecosystem unique. For any species a high degree of adaptation is always needed to thrive in such an ecosystem. Mammals in general have never adapted to cave life but they can play a major role in the cave ecosystem. Structu...

The anthropogenic food subsidy in the diet of animal populations is known to have negative ecological and physiological impacts on wildlife. The red fox (Vulpes vulpes), a generalist species living close to human habitation, often has access to garbage dumps. We studied the dietary pattern of red fox in the cold desert of the Trans-Himalayas in Ind...

The Trans-Himalayan landscape is an extreme cold desert with limited diversity and a low density of wild prey. The landscape has three widespread carnivores—the wolf Canis lupus chanco, snow leopard Panthera uncia, and red fox Vulpes vulpes—competing for similar prey. We studied predation patterns, dietary competition, and niche segregation of thre...

Habitat loss, fragmentation, and land-use changes threaten global biodiversity, and human needs are increasingly compromising the functional role of protected areas. Therefore, finding opportunities to conserve biodiversity within the human-modified landscape is crucial. Ecologists have begun paying attention to fragments of biodiversity habitats i...

The Central Asian wolves form a cohort within the wolf-dog clade known as the wooly wolf (Canis lupus chanco). These wolves are poorly studied and their current extent and distribution remain unknown. Apex predators already existing at higher elevations like wooly wolves can be severely affected by climate change because of the absence of suitable...

Geographical isolation can often lead to speciation, and two disconnected populations of the same species living in drastically different bioclimatic regions provide an opportunity to understand the process of speciation. The Woolly wolf is found in the cold-arid, Trans-Himalayan landscape, while the Indian wolf inhabits the semi-arid grasslands of...

Amphibian and reptiles are weather sensitive, poikilothermic group of animals, and their occurrence varies with the change in seasons. Present study was conducted in Ramnagar Forest Division of Uttarakhand state of India. Ramnagar Forest Division is the western part of Terai Arc Landscape which is an important ecoregion of the world. Sampling was d...

Amphibian and reptiles are weather sensitive, poikilothermic group of animals, and their occurrence varies with the change in seasons. Present study was conducted in Ramnagar Forest Division of Uttarakhand state of India. Ramnagar Forest Division is the western part of Terai Arc Landscape which is an important ecoregion of the world. Sampling was d...

We report the first photographic evidence of Himalayan Brown Bear (Ursus arctos isabellinus) presence in Lippa-Asrang Wildlife Sanctuary (WLS) in Himachal Pradesh, India. Camera trapping was done for the first time in this remote WLS situated in the Kinnaur district. The camera trap was set off by the Himalayan Brown Bear at an altitude of 3287 m....

Of the sub-species of Holarctic wolf, the Woolly wolf (Canis lupus chanco) is uniquely adapted to atmospheric hypoxia and widely distributed across the Himalaya, Qinghai Tibetan Plateau (QTP) and Mongolia. Taxonomic ambiguity still exists for this sub-species because of complex evolutionary history anduse of limited wild samples across its range in...

Ladakh lies on an important bird migratory route between the Palearctic and the Indian sub-continent, and the high altitude migratory species utilise Ladakh frequently as a stopover site. The trans-Himalayan landscape in Ladakh also serves as a breeding site for many water birds species including the globally threatened Black-necked Crane Grus nigr...

The increased interface of humans and large carnivores in human‐modified landscapes requires mechanisms to reduce conflict and allow co‐existence. The recent article by Majgaonkar et al. examining land‐sharing potential of the Western Ghats overlooks some important points in their analyses and inferences. Poorly designed occupancy survey with impro...

The Himalayan wolf is one of the most basal among wolf lineages in the world today. It inhabits mostly the high elevations, northwards from the Himalayas (1500–5000 m) in the Asian region. We conducted a meta‐analysis to understand the dietary habits of Himalayan wolves and wolves of the high rangelands of Asia from seven countries (n = 22). We fou...

We report the first photographic evidence of snow leopard Panthera uncia presence in Lippa Asrang Wildlife Sanctuary WLS in Himachal Pradesh, India. Camera trapping was done for the first time in this remote WLS situated in the Kinnaur district. The camera trap was triggered by snow leopard at an altitude of 3,938 m. Presence of snow leopard beyond...

Despite a wide distribution in Asia, Pallas’s cat or manul Otocolobus manul is a rarely recorded small carnivore in India. Here, we report three observations of this majestic furry carnivore in Changthang Wildlife Sanctuary CWLS. In India, there is little information available on the ecology and status of this threatened species.

Nesting and feeding habits of Indian giant squirrel (Ratufa indica) in Karlapat wildlife sanctuary, India.— The Indian giant squirrel (Ratufa indica) is one of four species of giant squirrels in the world. It is endemic to India and its populations are severely fragmented. The ecology of squirrels in Asia has been little studied, hindering conserva...

Vegetation classification for any area involves analysis of trees, shrubs and ground cover. These strata are the primary features to characterize the vegetation. Species density and diversity depends on several topographic and climatic variations. Patterns of species density, richness and diversity of different vegetation types were analyzed in Bij...

Culturing stingless bees ( Triogona spp .) is a challenging task. Acquiring their colonies from wild by eduction, i.e., natural hive duplication by attaching bee - box, is a slow process taking from three months to over a year. We investigate specific nest building requirements of Trigona iridipennins that could affect nest splitting dec ision. We...

From 1983, there have been three decades of the application and development of radio telemetry for wildlife studies in India. In this article, we review 82 studies from India, covering 47 species from four taxonomic classes. We examine and discuss the trends in the selection of study species, habitats and objectives of radio-telemetry studies and t...

The endangered snow leopard is a large felid that is distributed over 1.83 million km(2) globally. Throughout its range it relies on a limited number of prey species in some of the most inhospitable landscapes on the planet where high rates of human persecution exist for both predator and prey. We reviewed 14 published and 11 unpublished studies pe...

Point count method was used to estimate the population structure of avian fauna in two different forest types in Bijrani, Serpdulli and Dhikala ranges of Corbett national Park, Uttarakhand, India. A total of 38 plots were randomly laid by four teams of two each in a period of ten days covering both mixed and Sal forests equally. DISTANCE 6.0 was us...

Extant Indian wolves belong to three distinct genetic lineages, two of which, the peninsular and the Himalayan wolf are ancient and endemic. The Himalayan wolf inhabits high altitude (1800 to 4500m) valley habitats (<40% slope) ranging across Himachal Pradesh, Nepal, Tibet, and Sikkim. It subsists primarily on blue sheep, Kiang foals, rodents, and...

Wolves in the Trans-Himalaya of India and neighbouring countries are existing as small population facing numerous threat for their survival. Recent studies suggest that the wolves in this part of world are the oldest lineage and played important role in the evolution of modern day wolf-dog clad. Moreover, the distinction of these wolves is consider...

Radio-telemetry was first introduced in India in 1976. Since then telemetry technology has advanced significantly and has been used to study a wide array of animal species in different habitats. We have reviewed information obtained from 76 studies conducted so far in India using telemetry and evaluated the performance of the transmitters used, mai...