The house sparrow (Passer domesticus) is a widely distributed bird species found throughout the world. Being a species which has close association with humans, they chiefly nest on man-made structures. Here we describe the materials used by the house sparrow for making nests along an urban to rural gradient. For the current study, we selected the Coimbatore to Anaikatty road (State Highway-164), a 27 km inter-state highway, which traverses along an urban core to rural outstretch of Coimbatore. Of the 30 nests observed, 15 nests were from the rural, 8 were from the suburban, and 7 were from the urban areas. The nests had two distinct layers, specifically the structural layer and the inner lining. In the current study, we identified 11 plant species, 2 types of animal matter, and 6 types of anthropogenic matter, including plastic pieces and fine rope. The amount of anthropogenic materials in the nest formation varied along the gradients. The usage of anthropogenic materials was high in urban areas (p<0.05) whereas it did not differ at the sub-urban regions (p>0.05). A gradual decrease in the usage of plant matter towards the urban area was noticed (p<0.05). This study explicitly documents the links between nest material usage along an urban to rural gradient, in a human associated bird.

SummaryAim The aim of this research was to examine patterns of human-wildlife conflict and assess community perception towards compensation program implemented to ameliorate human-wildlife co-existence.Location North and South Forest Divisions, Nilambur, South India. Material and Methods Key findingsCrop damage was the most common type of conflict, followed by property damage, injury and death by wildlife attack. Crop damage was contributed mainly by elephant (Elephas maximus) (59%) and wild boar (Sus scrofa) (32%). The other wildlife species involved in conflict were bonnet macaque (Macaca radiata) (3.8%), leopard (Panthera pardus) (3.3%), Malabar giant squirrel (Ratufa indica) (0.47%), porcupine (Hystrix indica) (0.29%), Guar (Bos gaurus) (0.95%) and Sambar deer (Cervus unicolor)(0.29 %). On average, people took 13 days to claim compensation, which received decisions in 90 days. The majority of respondents (67%) were not satisfied with the compensation schemes. The main causes of such dissatisfaction were (a) allocation of insufficient money for the compensation (46.6%), (b) prolonged and difficult administrative procedures to make claims (20%), (c) people's convictions that compensation scheme does not eradicate the conflict (20%) and (d) disbelief on the officials involved in compensation program (6.6%). Conservation implications Our results suggest that compensationprogram has not gained acceptance among local community as an effective strategy to mitigate human-wildlife conflict. Although it may reduce hostile attitude towards wildlife, alternative approaches are urgently needed that avoid conflicts.

Insect communities in tropical forests tend to be structured vertically and with respect to tree fall gaps and edges. Furthermore, insect communities vary over time. Insight into such habitat specificity and temporal variation is needed to design and interpret biodiversity surveys and to compare conservation value among habitats. Some aspects of tropical insect community structure, such as the proportion of canopy specialists and temporal variation, vary among biogeographical regions and climatic zones. To date, few regions have been sampled systematically, so generalization remains difficult. We compared fruit-feeding butterfly communities among understory, canopy, natural treefalls, and forest edge, in a tropical forest of the Western Ghats, a strip of rainforest that is isolated from Sundaland, the large rainforest block of South-East Asia. During a yearlong study, we captured 3018 individuals belonging to 32 species and representing 14 genera. While some butterflies were captured in the canopy, no species was significantly more abundant in the canopy than in the understory. This observation was contrary to studies elsewhere in the tropics where 14–55% of the species could be classified as canopy specialists. Even though the largest number of species was captured at forest edges, species diversity was highest in the gaps. The communities at the forest edge differed importantly from those in treefall gaps: at the forest edge, we caught grassland species in addition to the forest species. Larger treefall gaps had higher butterfly abundance than smaller gaps. Both abundance and diversity peaked during the late monsoon season, and all common species in our sample also peaked during this period. The spatiotemporal community structure appears to depend on biogeography (less vertical stratification further from large forest blocks) and climate (more synchrony among species in seasonal abundance when there is a more severe dry season).

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Predation is an important process involved in the natural selection and evolution of animals, but is challenging to observe naturally. In this note we report predation events of two arboreal mammal species, the Indian giant flying squirrel, Petaurista philippensis and the Travancore flying squirrel, Petinomys fuscocapillus from the Western Ghats, India. Three raptor species and one carnivore species were observed predating on these species which are also the first reports of their predation on these flying squirrels.