Remnant Flowering Trees as Avifaunal Refuge in the Fringe Areas of Pakke Tiger Reserve, Arunachal Pradesh, India

Abstract

Remnant trees are prominent structures in modified and anthropogenic landscapes globally and avian species and remnant trees, together play an imperative role in preservation of forest ecosystem by providing several services such as pollination, seed dispersal and insect pest predators/defender. In addition, these trees act as the refuges in an anthropogenic landscape to provide ecological functions such as maintaining microclimate, soil nutrients and support species richness and diversity of birds, mammals and insects. This study was aimed to investigate the conservation values of remnant flowering trees occur in the fringe villages of Pakke Wildlife Sanctuary, Arunachal Pradesh, India in order to highlight their significance in the conservation of avian species through direct observation method. Through regular observations, we estimated a total of 2826 (45.59 ± 16.02) numbers of bird's individuals from 56 species belonging to 28 families and 9 orders in five flowing tree species, viz. Bombax ceiba (Simolu), Moringa oleifera (Sojina), Erythrina indica (Modar), Cassia renigera (Radhachura) and Bauhunia purpurea (Kanchan) found in the village land. The utmost richness (n = 28 species) of avifauna were recorded in Bombax ceiba. A maximum number of the bird species was recorded from order Passeriformes. Pycnonotus cafer (Red vented bulbul: 31.2%) was recorded as dominant bird species followed by Acridotheres fuscus (Jungle Myna: 11.9%), Saroglossa spilopterus (Spot winged starling: 9.9%), Acridotheres grandis (Great Myna: 8.4%), Zosterops palpebrosus (Oriental white eye: 5.4%) and Sturnia malabarica (Chestnut tailed starling: 5.1%) and remaining bird species were recorded less than 5% during the entire study period. Out of 56 recorded avian species, 55 species recognized as least concern species and one species Psittacula alexandri (Red-breasted Parakeet) which belongs to near threatened (NT) under IUCN categories of conservation. The present findings showed that remnant trees have similar competence to conserve bird species as natural forest of Pakke. Thus, the remnant trees with flowering and fruiting in human modified landscape plays a mutual relationship with surrounding bird diversity and help to support the ecosystem and therefore, plantation of flowering and fruiting trees should be encouraged in fringe villages for not only to increase the aesthetic value of landscape but also to provide quality welfare factors for the avian species conservation.