SHOLA SKY ISLANDS

Bird LAB

Studying diversity across isolated landscapes
  • Home
  • About
    • Shola Sky Islands
    • Sholicola
  • Research Areas
    • Landscape Ecology >
      • Landscape mapping
      • Sky Island Birds
      • Avian Malaria
      • LTEO
    • Bioacoustics >
      • Jerdon's Courser
      • Passive Acoustics of Shola birds
      • Automated bird song detection
      • Detecting rare species with acoustic arrays
      • Forest Owlet
    • Bird Biogeography >
      • Peninsular birds
      • Forest Owlet
    • Citizen Science and Outreach >
      • Tirupati Bird Atlas
      • Capacity building
      • Young Naturalists of Andhra Pradesh
      • Sky Island Photostory
      • Sky Island Beatbox
    • Completed Projects
  • People
    • Interns
  • Publications
  • Opportunities
  • Open Source Data
  • Media Coverage
  • Gallery
  • Blog
    • Stories from the field

Themes of research

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Landscape ecology
and conservation

Landscapes around us are changing rapidly. We need to understand these changes and its impacts on biodiversity. We are creating detailed maps and documenting landscape change with satellite imageries to create the backbone of further research. We also examine the impacts of landscape features on the occurrence, persistence, movement, disease and connectivity of different species.
​Explore projects 
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Bird evolution and biogeography

Biodiversity is created by a complex interplay of historic climate and geographic barriers such as mountains and river valleys. We are examining patterns of such speciation in birds with genetic data from across peninsular India. We hope to uncover drivers of speciation, answer long-standing hypotheses in biogeography and describe cryptic species in these landscapes. 
Explore projects
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BIOAcoustics and BehavIour

Acoustic signals such as bird calls and songs can be considered as cultural signals, and can be used to study behaviour. Targeted hand-held recordings of individuals help us understand patterns of song evolution in select species; while automated recorders across environmental gradients help in gathering sounds across a larger landscape over a longer period of time - from months to years.
Explore projects

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Citizen Science and Outreach

India offers a rich interface of high population density and biodiversity. With the growing rates of urbanisation and increase in agricultural areas, research at this interface zone will be valuable to understand the effects on biodiversity. We hope to build capacity among citizens to document biodiversity across human and natural landscapes.
Explore projects 
We are a group motivated by bird ecology and use various tools and techniques to understand different aspects of ecology and evolution. The lab group is based at IISER Tirupati, but consists of members engaging in various capacities - field assistants working on field, collaborators contributing critical expertise, interns and students from IISER and outside. Full team is here. We work across the Western Ghats, Eastern Ghats and peninsular India, with hopes to start working in the Andaman & Nicobar Islands. Highlights of our research in the media is here. Opportunities to engage with the lab are here. ​
​All photos  are by Prasenjeet Yadav (except in Gallery or if indicated) through a collaborative project described here.

Montane Shola Forest
Black and Orange Flycatcher
Chilappan and Sholicola museum specimens
V V Robin and CK Vishnudas
White bellied Sholicola
Nilgiri Pipit
Palani Chilappan
Mistnetting
Field data collection
White-bellied Sholakili
Velvet fronted Nuthatch
Collecting morphometric data
Jungle Owlet
Nilgiri Sholakili

Home   About   People   Publications   Opportunities   Media Coverage  Gallery
Picture
  • Home
  • About
    • Shola Sky Islands
    • Sholicola
  • Research Areas
    • Landscape Ecology >
      • Landscape mapping
      • Sky Island Birds
      • Avian Malaria
      • LTEO
    • Bioacoustics >
      • Jerdon's Courser
      • Passive Acoustics of Shola birds
      • Automated bird song detection
      • Detecting rare species with acoustic arrays
      • Forest Owlet
    • Bird Biogeography >
      • Peninsular birds
      • Forest Owlet
    • Citizen Science and Outreach >
      • Tirupati Bird Atlas
      • Capacity building
      • Young Naturalists of Andhra Pradesh
      • Sky Island Photostory
      • Sky Island Beatbox
    • Completed Projects
  • People
    • Interns
  • Publications
  • Opportunities
  • Open Source Data
  • Media Coverage
  • Gallery
  • Blog
    • Stories from the field