Analysis of regional variation in bird species diversity along the Himalayas

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The goal of this project is to document the bird diversity of the Himalayas of north-east India, and to ask why more than twice as many species are present there than in the western Himalayas of India. A team of Indian scientists and students from the Wildlife Institute of India and the University of Chicago, USA, will work at several sites across the Himalayas, surveying densities and distributions of all species. In the laboratory, DNA sequencing methods will be used to evaluate the phylogenetic relationships among the species.The study tackles a longstanding scientific problem: What are the historical and ecological causes of the difference in numbers of species between locations? It uses a novel approach to do this by studying patterns of decline in species numbers from east to west within many different genera of birds, and asking if the patterns are similar in each genus. The eastern Himalayas contain perhaps the second highest concentration of species in the world, but have been scarcely studied for various logistical reasons. Many animal and plant species remain to be discovered, including perhaps some new bird species. The work thus has broad conservation and educational significance.