Ecology, Morphology and Phylogeny of Bird Species in South India, Award in Indian Currency

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9320332 Price Description: This project supports travel and field expenses for Dr. Trevor Price of the University of California, San Diego, to conduct research in India. His Indian collaborator is Dr. Priya Davidar of Pondicherry University. A graduate student from U.C.S.D., Mr. Madhusudan Katti, will assist in the field work. The research aim is the study of the factors that limit population sizes of migratory bird species. Conditions during the breeding season and during the non-breeding season have been implicated. The planned field work is to study the wintering warblers in south India, with special focus on a single group of warblers (genus Phylloscopus), which are abundant and easy to study in winter, and which form a single tightly knit ecological guild. The research will include identification of birds returning, and the territories they return to, the strategies of feeding and the territorial behavior of both sexes in different psychological conditions including the effect of the breeding season. It is expected that this work would help develop a broader picture of wintering populations in Asia, and allow comparisons with studies on other continents. The study will help fill a gap in what is known about the morphology-ecology associations in warblers in the non-breeding season. Scope: The project provides support to do field research for a U.S. scientist, working with a graduate student, and in collaboration with an Indian scientist. India has unique resources and facilities in the project area, of biodiversity. The project fits well with INT's objectives. ***