The Critically Endangered Forest Owlet Heteroglaux Blewitti is Nested Within the Currently Recognized Athene Clade: A Century-Old Debate Addressed

Range-restricted species generally have specific niche requirements and may often have unique evolutionary histories. Unfortunately, many of these species severely lack basic research, resulting in poor conservation strategies. The phylogenetic relationship of the Critically Endangered Forest Owlet Heteroglaux blewitti has been the subject of a century-old debate. The current classifications based on non-phylogenetic comparisons of morphology place the small owls of Asia into three genera, namely, Athene, Glaucidium, and Heteroglaux. Based on morphological and anatomical data, H. blewitti has been alternatively hypothesized to belong within Athene, Glaucidium, or its own monotypic genus Heteroglaux. To test these competing hypotheses, we sequenced six loci (~4300 bp data) and performed phylogenetic analyses of owlets. Mitochondrial and nuclear trees were not congruent in their placement of H. blewitti. However, both mitochondrial and nuclear combined datasets showed strong statistical support with high maximum likelihood bootstrap (\u3e/ = 90) and Bayesian posterior probability values (\u3e/ = 0.98) for H. blewitti being nested in the currently recognized Athene group, but not sister to Indian A. brama. The divergence of H. blewitti from its sister taxa was between 4.3 and 5.7 Ma coinciding with a period of drastic climatic changes in the Indian subcontinent. This study presented the first genetic analysis of H. blewitti, a Critically Endangered species, and addressed the long debate on the relationships of the Athene-Heteroglaux-Glaucidium complex. We recommend further studies with more data and complete taxon sampling to understand the biogeography of Indian Athene species

Damsels in distress – seasons, habitat structure and water pollution changes damselfly diversity and assemblage in urban wetlands

Odonates are considered to be good ecological indicators, hence, they are used in biological assessment of habitat quality. However, species responses may vary spatiotemporally and therefore, it is useful to establish species-habitat relationships at a regional level. To test if tropical urban odonates respond to seasons, and to explore species-habitat relationships with an emphasis on water pollution, I studied six wetlands in the city of Pune for a year. I also investigated whether combining data on dragonflies and damselflies, as is often done in many studies, skews the results. I recorded seasons, water pollution and habitat attributes as predictors of the odonate diversity and assemblage. I analyzed the data on dragonflies, damselflies and odonates (dragonfly-damselfly combined) separately for seasonal variation, and species-habitat relationships. I used multiple regression and canonical correspondence analyses. Forty-four species were recorded during the study. No seasonal variation was detected, except for damselflies, which showed an increase in the diversity and species number post-monsoon. Multiple regression analysis showed that damselfly and dragonfly diversity varied as a function of season and water pollution, and monsoon respectively. In pre-monsoon, damselfly diversity marginally increased with pollution. Both the analyses suggest that combining data on dragonflies and damselflies may skew the end results. Therefore, I recommend further intensive and long-term research using accurately sampled habitat and pollution attributes, as well as habitat restoration through conserving urban green spaces and promoting gardens with streams and ponds

Avifaunal records from Chalis Ek, North Andaman Island: insights into distribution of some Andaman Island birds

Species records are important for assessing the distribution and status of species over a spatiotemporal scale. Andaman archipelago, off Southeast Asia, is a high avian endemism area, covering an area of >5000 km2. We conducted this survey in 2011 to make an inventory of avifauna of Chalis Ek area. A total of 73 species, belonging to 61 genera and 34 families were recorded, of which 60 were resident, 11 were winter migrants, one vagrant, and a single species introduced from mainland India. Three species were found to be new records, expanding distribution. Thirteen were endemic to the Andaman and Nicobar group of islands and eleven were listed as near threatened in the IUCN Red List. This study shows that sites such as Chalis Ek, even though subject to moderate anthropogenic disturbance, still hosts a large and distinctive avifauna and should be protected

Avifaunal records from Chalis Ek, North Andaman Island: insights into distribution of some Andaman Island birds

Species records are important for assessing the distribution and status of species over a spatiotemporal scale. Andaman archipelago, off Southeast Asia, is a high avian endemism area, covering an area of >5000 km2. We conducted this survey in 2011 to make an inventory of avifauna of Chalis Ek area. A total of 73 species, belonging to 61 genera and 34 families were recorded, of which 60 were resident, 11 were winter migrants, one vagrant, and a single species introduced from mainland India. Three species were found to be new records, expanding distribution. Thirteen were endemic to the Andaman and Nicobar group of islands and eleven were listed as near threatened in the IUCN Red List. This study shows that sites such as Chalis Ek, even though subject to moderate anthropogenic disturbance, still hosts a large and distinctive avifauna and should be protected

Odonates across a tropical urbanization gradient (Mula River, Pune, Maharashtra, India)

Globally urban wetlands are under high anthropogenic pressure of degradation. Urban wetlands are hotspots for species losses and rapid turnover in species assemblages. Therefore, studying such wetlands may provide an estimate of the pace of local extinction, concerning wetlanddependent species such as odonates. We undertook a study to document odonate species across a tropical urbanization gradient. We sampled six localities across the gradient across the Mula River that flows through the Pune City, India. We sampled adult odonates using a newly devised Halfcircle Point Count method from September 2016 to March 2017. We took multiple temporal replicates per site. We also sampled larvae across six sites once in November 2016. We measured site characteristics such as canopy cover, solid waste, and water turbidity to understand the level of disturbance at each site. We recorded 41 odonates, six species (primarily Gomphidae members) exclusively from the larval sampling. We did not find the localization of species in a particular site across the urbanization gradient, possibly because we sampled a relatively short stretch of the river to capture the variation. Here, we update the Odonata list of Pune including data on larvae. We demonstrate that larval sampling complements Odonata surveys, especially in recording Gomphids. We recommend future research to include a longer timespan and extensive sampling area

Climatic Niche Model Raster Files

Contains Species Folders. In each folder ASCII raster files of climatic niche models are organized with respect to time period. LIG - Last Interglacial, LGM - Last Glacial Maximum, MDH -Mid Holocene, Current (CUR, 1950 - 2000).Forest Owlet - Athene blewitti, Jungle Owlet - Glaucidium radiatum, Spotted Owlet - Athene brama, Little Owl - Athene noctu

Global Biodiversity Knowledge Commons and Civil Society of the Global South

In our times of challenged relationships between nature and culture, it is essential that biodiversity conservation in biodiversity-rich areas of the world is ceded priority with recognised urgency.  The Convention on Biological Diversity's (CBD) Aichi Target 19 states that "By 2020, knowledge, the science base and technologies relating to biodiversity, its values, functioning, status and trends, and the consequences of its loss, are improved, widely shared and transferred, and applied."  One of the significant impediments mentioned in achieving the goals of CBD is lack of scientific information, which is substantiated by studies that highlight various gaps such as taxonomic, thematic, spatial and temporal biases in the global knowledge on biodiversity. Behind such global approaches to knowledge and its production, there is a need to establish a biodiversity knowledge commons at the global, regional and national scales.  Biodiversity informatics is tightly integrated with both fundamental biological sciences and the most recent advances in information technology, which gives it a unique blended quality of an academic discipline and technological practice. This has generated much enthusiasm, where rapid technological progress in biodiversity informatics is witnessed along with large scale threats to biodiversity. Such enthusiastic efforts for biodiversity informatics data and tools, as Peterson et al. (2010) argues, need to be integrated with other overall conceptual frameworks, particularly within ecology and evolutionary biology. In the context of the Global South, it is important to place the practice and knowledge of biodiversity informatics within the framework of sustainable development, biodiversity conservation, traditional knowledge and development aspirations.  The emphasis on growth, in the current global economic paradigm, has meant undue stress on natural resources. State institutions in the Global South, responsible for natural resource and biodiversity conservation, are often found to be silent if not supportive of the dominant development policies. Civil society groups and grass-roots level organisations have taken the lead in documenting biodiversity at relevant scales, to argue for conservation. It is imperative that citizen science has a growing role to play in environmental assessments (Chandler et al. 2016), mediated through biodiversity informatics. By participating in knowledge production and overcoming the barriers of scientific legitimacy by collaborating with experts in scientific institutions, civil society science groups play a role in changing the power relations by developing the means to generate independent knowledge (Jalbert 2016), contributing towards a global knowledge commons.  Limiting factors such as a data sharing culture, coping with quickly evolving technologies and capabilities, inhibit communities in the Global South from participating in building a global biodiversity knowledge commons. The historically skewed accumulation of knowledge on biodiversity of the Global South in northern institutions facilitates their influence of contemporary global policies and allocation of resources. Apart from a few exceptions, such as Biodiversity Information for Development, JRS Foundation’s African efforts and Critical Ecosytem Partnership Fund’s investments in biodiversity hotspots, one does not see any encouraging shifts in this cyclic trend, which will not be effective in addressing the biases in global biodiversity knowledge. As much as the development of the discipline and practice of biodiversity informatics at different scales is important, it is equally necessary to address such structural aspects that affect the constitution of the global biodiversity knowledge commons and its relevance to the communities in the Global South

A species tree reconstruction using BEAST on concatenated (mitochondrial + nuclear) dataset indicate that <i>H</i>. <i>blewitti</i> is nested within the <i>Athene</i> clade.

<p>The brown text indicates the species sampled in the present study. The nodal values show Bayesian posterior probability (PP). All the nodes are highly supported (PP = 1) except for those where PP is mentioned as nodal value.</p

A Maximum Likelihood Phylogenetic tree of <i>Athene</i>-<i>Heteroglaux</i>-<i>Glaucidium</i> members.

<p><b>3A</b>: Tree constructed using mitochondrial (CYTB + COI) dataset; <b>3B</b>: Tree constructed using nuclear (RAG-1 + TGFB2 + MYO) dataset. The red text indicates the species sampled in the present study. The nodal values indicate Bayesian posterior probability separated by maximum likelihood bootstrap support.</p

Summary of molecular dating analysis using (uncorrelated) relaxed lognormal clock.

<p>Summary of molecular dating analysis using (uncorrelated) relaxed lognormal clock.</p