Changing Faunal Ecology in the Thar Desert

Download or read book Changing Faunal Ecology in the Thar Desert written by B.K. Tyagi and published by Scientific Publishers. This book was released on 2005-05-01 with total page 409 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Changing Faunal Ecology in the Thar Desert - dedicated to the fond memory of Professor Dr. Ishwar Prakash, the legendary rodentologist - is a unique mlange of scientific investigations on diversified ecological subjects pertaining to different organism groups, from as tiny as protozoa to as giant as mammals. Altogether sixteen contributions, including an original, up-to-date and authentic bio-bibliography of Dr. I. Prakash, make this volume an exceptional treatise penned by 24 expert scientist authors many of whom have spent a life in arid ecosystems including the Thar Desert. The book provides a crystal clear proof of the constantly changing behavioural ecology of animals in the Thar Desert which has been under an ever increasing impact of, among several imminent factors, the Indira Gandhi Nahar Pariyojana (IGNP), one of the worlds largest irrigation systems of its type in a xeric environment. The change is discernible not only in structure and distribution of animals but in their resting, feeding, breeding and, as evident in case of parasites, the extent of parasitism as well as pathogenecity. Finally, this book offers the first well documented evidence of immense behavioral transformation in various different animal groups in the Tharp Desert a phenomenon of enormous significance for both conservation management and diversity inventorization activities of its faunal wealth.