Nest plant selection of the Andaman Crake Rallina canningi, Andaman Islands, India
N. Ezhilarasi1 & L. Vijayan 2
1,2 Salim Ali Center for Ornithology and
Natural History, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu 641108, India
Email: 1 ezhilcbe@gmail.com, 2 vijayanlalitha@gmail.com
Date
of publication (online): 26 October 2010
Date
of publication (print): 26 October 2010
ISSN
0974-7907 (online) | 0974-7893 (print)
Editor: K.R. Sasidharan
Manuscript
details:
Ms # o2467
Received 24
May 2010
Final revised
received 17 July 2010
Finally
accepted 10 September 2010
Citation: Ezhilarasi,
N. & L. Vijayan(2010). Nest
plant selection of the Andaman Crake Rallina canningi, Andaman Islands, India. Journal
of Threatened Taxa2(11): 1301-1302.
Copyright: © N.Ezhilarasi & L. Vijayan 2010. Creative Commons
Attribution 3.0 Unported License. JoTT allows unrestricted use of this article in any medium
for non-profit purposes, reproduction and distribution by providing adequate
credit to the authors and the source of publication.
The Andaman Crake Rallina canningi,is a rare and endemic bird to the Andaman Islands (Collar et al. 1994; Stattersfield et al. 1998; Vijayanet al. 2000, 2005). This bird
retained under the category of Near Threatened (BirdLifeInternational 2008), inhabits marshland inside the forests (Taylor & Perlo 1998). There is paucity of information on the breeding biology of the Andaman
Crake (Ali & Ripley 1969; Taylor & Van Perlo1998; BirdLife International 2001) except for the
records of nests, eggs (Baker 1934) and casual observations (BirdLife International 2001). Hence, a study was conducted on the breeding biology of the
Andaman Crake.
Study Area: Andaman and Nicobar Islands form a major group
of oceanic islands in the Bay of Bengal, India, located between 605’-14045’N
& 920-940E. Andaman Islands comprise north, middle, south and little Andaman (Das
1999; Das & Palden 2001).
Our intensive study was at Pathilevelin North Andaman, where the main forest type is moist deciduous with irregular
top storey of predominantly deciduous trees which grow
to 40m or more harbouring woody climbers. The second
storey consists of numerous species with shrubby evergreen undergrowth of Licuala peltata, where the major tree species were Pterocarpus dalbergioides,Terminalia bialata, Bombax insigne andTetrameles nudiflora.
Methods: Nests were located and studied following Martin
& Geupel (1993) and Martin et al. (1997) during
May-October 2005-2006. Ivlev Index of selectivity (1961) - E= U-A/U+A, where U is percent utilization of species and A percent availability
of the same species was used. Selectivity levels range from –1 to +1,
where (–) indicates avoidance while (+) indicates preference. Mann-Whitney U test (Zar 1999) was used to compare nest- plant character with
non-nesting plant.
Results and Discussion: Table1 presents the details of 155 nests on 151
plants belonging to 21 species and 12 families. All nests except three were found on the live plants (two on
dead Terminalia catappa (Combretaceae) and
one on dead Bouea oppositifolia (Anacardiaceae). Four species, Terminalia nudiflora (Thipok), Pterocarpus dalbergioides (Padauk), Terminalia bialata (White chugulam) andPterygota alata (Lakko) accounted to
72.12% while 17 other species together contributed 27.81% of nest trees.
The preference test showed that Andaman Crake
had a higher choice for five species, i.e. Tetrameles nudiflora (E=0.84), Pterocarpus dalbergioides (E=0.63), Terminalia bialata (E=0.53) Pterygota alata (E=0.83) and Celtis timorensis (Thejpathi) (E=0.68),while they avoided 13 species, i.e. Spondias pinnata, Terminalia manii, Endospermum diadenum, Bombax insigne, Pongamia pinnata, Syzygium samarangense, Dillenia indica, Parishia insigni, Pterospermum acerifolium, Bouea oppositifolia, Lannea coromandelica, Miliusa tectona andCeltis timorensis.
The nesting sites of the Andaman Crake were
closer to the water source, placed mostly at the bottom of huge trees. Nest plant variables were compared with
non-nesting plants and significant differences were recorded in GBH of the
nesting tree. The GBH of the
nesting tree was greater than non-nesting tree (U=171.5, p<0.05) and number of buttresses were comparatively more in nesting tree
than non-nesting tree (U=12, p<0.05).
Of the 21 species of trees observed, Tetrameles nudiflora and Pterocarpus dalbergioides with bigger and more
buttresses and architectural suitability were the most preferred nesting
trees as observed by Das (2008).
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