Check List 12(2): e19476, doi: 10.15560/12.2.1874
Bird diversity of the Amrutganga Valley, Kedarnath, Uttarakhand, India with an emphasis on the elevational distribution of species
Soham Dixit‡, Viral Joshi§, Sahas Barve|‡ Rheinische Friedrich Wilhelms-Universität Bonn, Germany§ Bombay Natural History Society, India| Cornell University, United States of America
Corresponding author: Soham Dixit ( soham5555@gmail.com ) © 2017 Soham Dixit, Viral Joshi, Sahas Barve. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Citation:
Dixit S, Joshi V, Barve S (2016) Bird diversity of the Amrutganga Valley, Kedarnath, Uttarakhand, India with an emphasis on the elevational distribution of species. Check List 12(2): 1874. https://doi.org/10.15560/12.2.1874 |  |
Abstract
A unique aspect of montane birds is the elevational stratification they show in their distribution, but in the Himalayas, a subset of the species show elevational migration, making bird communities on these mountains especially dynamic. Thus, understanding the elevational distribution and movement of species across seasons is important to fully understand broad-scale community patterns. In this study, we compile a comprehensive checklist of birds along a 2,300 m Himalayan elevational gradient in the Amrutganga Valley, Kedarnath Wildlife Division, Uttarakhand, India. We recorded 244 species including 34 species new for the area and two new species for the state. Most importantly, we describe the elevational distribution of more than a 200 species and the dates of first sighting for several summer migrants in the season. We also studied changes in species richness and turnover at multiple elevations across seasons. We hope that this study provides a baseline for future research on elevational distribution of birds in the Western Himalayas.
Keywords
Western Himalayas; Avifauna; Kedarnath; elevational migration; elevational distribution