Swapna Devi Ray

• Ph.D.
• Officer-Environment and Climate Change at Nature, Environment and Wildlife Society (NEWS)

Wetlands are highly dynamic ecosystems that offer valuable sustainable services. Despite their importance, wetlands are often ignored, which makes them threatened globally. Reportedly, India has lost one-third of its wetlands over the last four decades due to various anthropogenic pressures such as urbanization, agricultural expansion, and pollutio...

The Old-World quails, Coturnix coturnix (common quail) and Coturnix japonica (Japanese quail), are morphologically similar yet occupy distinct geographic ranges. This study aimed to elucidate their evolutionary trajectory and ancestral distribution patterns through a thorough analysis of their mitochondrial genomes. Mitogenomic analysis revealed hi...

Wildlife road-kill studies in India have mainly focused on herpetofauna and mammals with a very few reports on birds and other invertebrates whereas, the wildlife road-kill studies in Assam are meagre. In this study, we report road-kill individuals of different select taxa from select road-stretches of Dehing-Patkai National Park (DPNP) and Kaziran...

Turnix suscitator (barred-button quail) is a member of the primitive genus Turnix in the highly diverse order of shore birds Charadriiformes. Absence of genome scale data of T. suscitator has limited our understanding about its systematics, taxonomic and evolutionary history as well has hindered the characterization of genome wide microsatellite ma...

Common myna (Acridotheres tristis) is a member of the Sturnidae family with widespread natural and introduced habitat range across many continents. Acridotheres tristis population thrives in close association with human settlements and agricultural fields making it one of the most invasive bird species worldwide. For better management and conservat...

Turdoides affinis is a species of group dwelling old world passerine of family Leiothrichidae. Unavailability of genome-wide sequence and species-specific molecular markers have hindered comprehensive understanding of cooperative breeding behaviour in T. affinis. Therefore, we generated genome-wide microsatellite markers through whole genome short...

Japanese quail (Coturnix japonica) is an important poultry species selectively bred for its egg and meat production. India ranks third amongst the top five quail meat producing countries in the world. Considering the convoluted history of domestic C. japonica lines development worldwide, no genome scale information is available on commercially avai...

The systematic study of feather microstructure supports species identification, which is important in cases of illegally traded birds and bird-aircraft strikes. Our study focused on morphometric, macro- and micro-characters of feathers of Common Myna Acridotheres tristis from India. Among macro-characters, silver-colored filoplume feathers with pal...

Puddling behaviour of lepidopterans was observed along a stretch of road near Dehing-Patkai National Park, Assam. The survey was conducted for 15 days from 4:00 to 11:00 hrs and 15:00 to 18:00 hrs on a selected road stretch of the protected area. Six lepidopteran species of three families were encountered feeding on available resources. False Tiger...

Earlier research on feather morphology emphasized comprehensively on the body contour feather than various other types of feathers. Therefore, we conducted a systematic study on all feather types of the Indian Pitta Pitta brachyura, a passerine bird native to the Indian subcontinent. Feather barbs from wing contour, tail contour, body contour, semi...

Psittacula cyanocephala is an endemic parakeet from the Indian sub-continent that is widespread in the illegal bird trade. Previous studies on Psittacula parakeets have highlighted taxonomic ambiguities, warranting studies to resolve the issues. Since the mitochondrial genome provides useful information concerning the species evolution and phylogen...

Though a few in numbers, investigations on feather microstructures from the early 20th century till date, have contributed immensely to various fields such as phylogeny, palaeontology, archaeology, wildlife forensic, biomechanics and so on. However, existing studies on feather micro-structures of birds endemic to the India/Indian sub-continent are...

Psittacula cyanocephala is a parakeet endemic to the Indian sub-continent, widespread in the illegal bird trade. Previous studies on Psittacula parakeets have highlighted taxonomic ambiguities, warranting further studies to resolve such issues. Since the mitochondrial genome provides useful information about a species concerning its evolution and p...

Indian rose-ringed parakeet (Psittacula krameri) is one of the most recognizable illegally trafficked wild birds. With feral populations in Europe and Australia, its phylogeny and taxonomy are of great interest amongst biologists. The information regarding the genetic composition and make up of Psittacula species from various geographic regions is...

Mitochondrial genome provides useful information about species with respect to its evolution and phylogenetics. We have taken the advantage of high throughput next-generation sequencing technique to sequence the complete mitogenome of Yellow-billed babbler (Turdoides affinis), a species endemic to Peninsular India and Sri Lanka. Both, reference- ba...

The present study was carried out in Deepor beel bird sanctuary during December 2013 to September 2014. Deepor beel bird sanctuary lies between 26° 7' 52" N; 91° 38' 70" E in Kamrup district. A total of 39 species belonging to 5 families and 22 genera were recorded from Deepor beel bird sanctuary. We also recorded Ceriagrion rubiae and Agriocnemis...