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Investigating resource selection of the Indian leopard Panthera pardus fusca (Meyer, 1794) in a tropical dry deciduous forest
Krishnendu Mondal, Pooja Chourasia, Shilpi Gupta, Kalyanasundaram Sankar, Qamar Qureshi,
Volume 4, Issue 2 (6-2022)
Abstract
In order to understand the generalist nature of leopards and whether they have any degree of specialization, a study on resource selection of the Indian Leopard (Panthera pardus fusca) was carried out in a tropical dry deciduous forest in Sariska Tiger Reserve, Western India from January 2007 to May 2011 with the use of camera trapping under the mark-recapture framework. Camera trapping was done in an intensive study area (230 km2) encompassing 200 camera locations on 85–130 occasions each year. In total, 40 Indian leopards were identified in the study area, of which seven individual leopards were selected for resource selection analysis. Resource selection by Indian leopards was investigated at two scales. First, habitat selection was studied using compositional analysis comparing habitat availability in the geographic range of all seven Indian leopards and utilization by the individual animals within it. The results showed that habitat selection was non-random (P< 0.001). The leopard’s preference of habitat selection was in the following order: Boswellia forest> Anogeissus forest> Acacia forest> Butea forest> Zizyphus forest> Barren land> Scrubland. Second, resource selection was studied through a generalized linear mixed-effect model (GLMM) comparing the resource availability and utilization in each leopard’s range. The results showed that leopards preferred Anogeissus dominated forest followed by Zizyphus mixed forest and scrubland. In addition, leopards preferred habitat with a higher encounter rate of sambar (Rusa unicolor) and chital (Axis axis) and to a lesser degree of use, habitat with a higher livestock encounter rate. The results revealed that Indian leopards showed a significant degree of preference for moderate to thick vegetation cover and wild prey species rather than areas with open forest types and domestic prey species.

Diversity of spiders (Arachnida: Araneae) in natural and altered ecosystems in Salem district, Tamil Nadu, India
Dhanapal Sangavi, Padur Sankaranarayanan Anisha, Govindharaj Vinothini, Parthasarathy Thiruchenthil Nathan,
Volume 5, Issue 1 (3-2023)
Abstract
A detailed investigation of the spider diversity in Salem district, Tamil Nadu was carried out across different habitats for a period of five years. A total of 184 spider species belonging to 97 genera in 29 families were recorded, which represented nearly 10% of Indian and 65% of Tamil Nadu spider diversity. Among them 25 spider species are endemic to India. From the 29 families, the 3 most abundant families based on number of specimens sampled were Lycosidae (21%), Araneidae (18%), and Eresidae (17%), constituting 56% of the spider species. Simpson diversity indices ranged between 0.88 to 0.30 for all the studied habitats. The species richness was highest in bamboo fields (2.78), and the lowest was observed in grasslands (0.76). The highest abundance of spider species was observed in the sugarcane fields (0.83), followed by the grasslands (0.57) and paddy fields (0.53). Further, these spiders were categorized into nine types based on their foraging guilds. Among them, the highest species richness was observed in foliage runners. A maximum of nine spider guilds were observed in the shrub ecosystem. Natural ecosystems such as shrublands, treescapes, and grasslands had higher spider diversity than altered agricultural and domestic ecosystems. This is the first report on spider diversity in Salem District, Tamil Nadu revealing the varying spider diversity along with their guild types across different habitats.

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