Thekke Thumbath Shameer

Advanced institute for wildlife conservation · Centre for Conservation Education

The natural distribution and the species ecology of the lesser-known nocturnal endemic brown palm civet in the Western Ghats are definite. We used camera trap data from the Western Ghats to predict the suitable niche, coat colour pattern, and diel activity. The environmental variables like rainfall, elevation, isothermaility, tree density, and tree...

Western Ghats landscape is unique in habitat diversity and endemism, predicted to undergo massive global warming changes. After the Pleistocene, particular micro-climatic conditions prevailed in the Western Ghats, leading to allopatric speciation and endemism. We evaluated this hypothesis by modeling the distribution patterns of endemic ancient rep...

Long-term monitoring of golden jackals along the coastline tract of the Southern Western Ghats produced surprising results. We observed various coat color patterns such as leucism, melanism, semi-melanism, and rusty coats among jackals resembling dogs. The melanistic variation and rust colour expression may be due to the acquired genetic properties...

Understanding patterns of species distribution and diversity plays a vital role in biodiversity conservation. Such documentation is frequently lacking for bats, which are relatively little studied and often threatened. The Western Ghats biodiversity hotspot in peninsular India is a bat hotspot with 63 species. We conducted a comprehensive bat surve...

Interactions shape the existence, abundance, and dynamics of species in an ecological community. Using ecological niche modelling and temporal analysis, we investigated the spatio-temporal partitioning of three sympatric mongooses within the Western Ghats, India: ruddy mongoose (Urva smithii), stripe-necked mongoose (Urva vitticollis), and brown mo...

Growing human populations and destruction of natural habitats intensify human-wildlife conflicts, particularly with wild boar (Sus scrofa). To minimize the conflicts and undertake mitigation measures predicting conflict risk zones and identifying the predictors is necessary. Accordingly, we conducted a study by collecting secondary data on conflict...

Habitat loss and encroachment lead to conservation challenges such as human-elephant conflicts (HEC). Understanding the patterns and predictors of HEC is crucial to identify priority areas for mitigation efforts. Accordingly, a study was conducted across the forest divisions of Tamil Nadu, India. We collected HEC data for 2016–2021 from the forest...

The Western Ghats (WG) are a renowned global biodiversity hotspot and one of India's significant bat hotspots (Raman and Hughes 2020). Recently, the IUCN conservation outlook has assessed the WG as a region of Significant Concern with climate change as the most prevalent threat to the biodiversity and ecosystem. The bats are known to be potential i...

Anthropogenic activities have significantly disrupted natural habitats, driving many species to the brink of extinction. While concerted conservation efforts and habitat restoration initiatives have successfully rescued several species from the brink, there remains a significant gap in our understanding of the population and distribution of numerou...

Human-wildlife conflict (HWC) is a term often misunderstood, with most people restricting its use to the damage to humans and property by wildlife and not vice versa, thereby leading to a biased approach to its resolution. HWC is rising, primarily due to a growing human population and associated habitat destruction. The lack of critical analyses in...

Machine learning enables computers to learn similarly to humans. In recent years, the use of machine learning in ecology has skyrocketed. Advances in computer science have allowed us to better combine the ever-increasing volumes of data we acquire with our knowledge of how natural systems function. These enhancements in process comprehension are es...

We used Maxent to model the distribution of the Nilgiri marten (Martes gwatkinsii), a cryptic semi-arboreal mammal, with climate, forest, and human disturbance as covariates. We modelled the species niche, which identified suitable habitat across a variety of land uses and protection regimes. The findings point to a species niche defined by isolate...

A camera trap study was conducted in the mangrove of Krishna Wildlife Sanctuary, the eastern coast of India, to understand the assemblage, temporal segregation and dial activity pattern of small and medium-sized mammals. Forty-one pairs of passive infrared camera traps were deployed and monitored for 30 consecutive days, making a total of 1,230 tra...

Many felids in the wild and in captivity have blotched stripe patterns. For the first time, we report the presence of a blotched pattern in the fishing cat population in the Godavari delta mangrove region. Four different blotched individuals were captured by the camera trap monitoring. The thickness of the stripes and the broken stripes vary more t...

Poaching and illegal trafficking are major threats to biodiversity, especially when endangered felids are concerned. Tigers are iconic animals, and there is huge demand for their body parts both in the national and international illegal markets. India forms the largest tiger conservation unit in the world and poaching is at its peak even though the...

Tiger conservation is a global initiative, and data on distribution, prey dynamics, competition, and range extension are critical factors in sustaining its fragile populations. We concentrated on evaluating the data pertaining to these variables in order to designate the high-altitude Nilgiri forest division as a tiger conservation unit. We gathere...

Accurate species and sex identification of non-invasive and forensic samples of the tiger and leopard is still confusing when using the allele-specific methods. We designed allele-specific methods with penultimate nucleotide mismatch in a nested manner for the exact identification and double-checking of forensic samples. The mismatch design is a no...

While global mammalian diversity is collapsing due to increased poaching and habitat loss, evidence-based conservation in protected areas is often regarded as a panacea. Tiger reserves in India set an example, where annual camera trap monitoring is conducted for understanding the trends in the tiger population. However, less is known about other co...

Extrapolation of spatio-temporal association in the guild of vulnerable wetland species like the fishing cat (Prionailurus viverrinus Bennet, 1833) can inform strategies for conservation action. Camera trap study was conducted at Coringa Wildlife Sanctuary (CWLS) and the adjoined mangroves located in the East Godavari River Estuarine system (EGREE)...

Salim Ali's fruit bat, Latidens salimalii, is a monotypic endangered fruit bat endemic to Western Ghats (WG) with an ambiguous distribution. The distribution range, habitat suitability, and biology of this species are still uncertain. Endemic species inhabiting the high elevation of WG like L. salimalii are threatened due to climatic change and see...

Climate change and its effects on natural surroundings primarily affect the small mammals, especially the habitat specialists. Herpestes fuscus fuscus is an endemic small mammal confined to the high altitudes of Western Ghats (WG). Global warming and the latent increase in temperature with unprecedented variations in the climate have a potential ha...

There have been a few sightings of rusty-spotted cat Prionailurus rubiginosus from different parts of India over the last few decades. However, information on the species is scant from Kerala in the southern Western Ghats. Here we report evidence of the species from Periyar Tiger Reserve, Parambikulam Tiger Reserve, Chinnar Wildlife Sanctuary and W...

Albinism was observed in jungle cats Felis chaus and jackals Canis aureus along the coastline of the southern Western Ghats. This is the foremost report of occurrence of albinism in jungle cats and jackals in the wild. The coastline tract of the southern Western Ghats has its major share in the state of Kerala. Albinism was observed in jungle cats...