STUDIES OF THE AVIFAUNA IN URBAN LIMITS OF AJMER, RAJASTHAN, INDIA

The urban sprawls are common in the present age. The urban biodiversity conservation is a challenge for the urban planners. The habitats formed within the green and blue spaces are home for the wide variety of floral and faunal diversity. In the series of the conservation actions, the present investigation was undertaken in the urban areas of the central Rajasthan, i.e., Ajmer. It aimed to review and prepare comprehensive database through assessment of the avifaunal species of the municipal area of Ajmer. The seasonal surveys and periodic sampling observations were recorded for twenty-four months from February 2017 to January 2019. The urban area was classified into three regions namely, the Urban Green Patches (UGP), Urban Aquatic Area (UAA) and Human Settlement Area (HSA). The UGA & HSA harbored 104 species and 41 species respectively whereas the UAA harbored 95 species. The Relative Diversity Index of the various species was calculated. The present investigation recorded 167 species from 58 families. With the earlier studies with a reporting of 235 species from 62 families, there was addition of 13 new species and two families. Thus, the cumulative list of Ajmer District presented an account of 243 bird species from 64 families.


Introduction
The urbanization process has given rise to the human dominated landscapes with complex ecological systems as the urban ecosystems which need to be explored and converted to the opportunity [1][2][3][4][5][6][7]. Such man-made ecosystems have certain areas of high biological diversity. These sites are the point of interest for the conservationists for the study of the urban biodiversity especially avifauna. The patterns of biodiversity determine the features of the urban ecosystems. Rajasthan (India) owes diversity of the habitats which area also evident in the human settlements. The western low rainfall desert region, central hilly terrains, eastern high rainfall terrains of plains and plateau provide habitats for diverse avifauna. Over 500 avifaunal species are being recorded from the state of Rajasthan. The Aravalli Hills harbor over 300 avifaunal species, near about eighty percent of which are recorded from the central parts [3,5,6,8].
The study of the birds gives the better understanding of the past and present status of the biodiversity of the area. The environmental challenges could be better understood by the birds [9][10][11]. Further, monitoring the species abundance, habitat preference, and correlation between species abundance and habitat provides basic information for determining factors causing population fluctuation of bird species. Richness, abundance and community composition are often used by ecologists to understand the diversity of species in their natural occurrence [12]. The change in vegetation composition could impact the quality and quantity of habitat for birds in terms of food, water and cover which can further affect the diversity, abundance and distribution of birds [13]. In order to prioritize the future conservation of species, understanding the effect of habitat on bird community structure is important [14]. In the long run, the relative value of different habitats and conservation importance of sites can be assessed by investigating the diversity of birds present at those sites [15].

Profile of Study Area
Rajasthan is situated in northwestern part of India between the latitude 23 0 03' to 30 0 12' N and longitude 69 0 30' to 78 0 17'E. It is the largest state of the Republic of India by area. Geographical features include the Thar Desert, Aravalli Mountain Ranges, Southern Malwa Plateau and Eastern plains. The Ajmer District is located nearly in the center of the Rajasthan and bordered with one of the world oldest mountain ranges i.e. Aravalli Hills (Fig. 1). The Ajmer Municipal area lies in the foothills of the Central Aravalli Hills with the highest peak Taragarh (870 feet) (Fig. 2). It experiences a mean annual rainfall of 573mm but scanty and often uncertain. Temperature ranges from 2 0 C to 46 0 C. The summers are extremely hot in this part. However, there are many climate changes the Aravalli has witnessed in the recent past, particularly the rainfall, temperature fluctuation and shift of weathers. For the ease of study, the habitats of the municipal area of Ajmer city in the present study was categorized under two broad groups (see 2, 3).

Field Studies and Surveys
The field surveys and observations were taken for the period of two years February 2017 to January 2019. Recording of the bird species were also made from the calls. Regular surveys carried out by systematically walking on the fixed routes through the study area. Systematic observations of the species in different habitats of the municipal limits ( Fig. 2) were recorded from 6:00 to 9:00 hrs and from 16:00 to 18:00 hrs. General observations were also made during other timings too. The nomenclature is after Manakadan & Pittie [16], and taxonomic arrangement is following Gill & Donsker [17]. The status of the species like resident, winter migrant, summer migrant and passage migrant were assigned were assigned as per the observations in each survey based on the presence/absence method along with analysis of the other parameters.

Data Collection and Analysis
Relative Diversity (RDi): The relative diversity (RDi) of families was calculated using the following formula [18] Similarity Indices: Similarity indices between the intensive study sites were calculated using Jaccard Index and Sorenson Index [12].

Results and Discussions
In the investigation period of twenty-four months, a total of 167 species of birds belonging to 58 families were recorded in the study area ( Table 1). The three different study sites i.e. Urban Aquatic Area (UAA) had 39% of the total species observed; Human Settlement Area (HSA) had 18% and Urban Green Patches (UGP) had 43% of the total species observed (Fig. 3). The Relative Diversity of different families was calculated to determine the dominance of species occurrence at a particular study site ( Table 2). The highest relative diversity was recorded as of Anatidae family with 15 species and 8.93 RDi followed by Ardeidae, Accipitridae, Scolopacidae and Turdinae families with 9 species each and 5.36 RDi respectively representing the dominance of species occurrence belonging to these families at study area ( Table 2). The calculation for the similarity indices among different study sites reveled that Urban Green Patches and Human Settlement Areas had more similar habitat structure as the Jaccard index and Sorenson Index values are higher i.e. 0.3809 and 0.5517 respectively. While on the other hand Urban Aquatic Areas and Human Settlement Areas had very less similarity in habitat characteristics hence the values of Jaccard index and Sorenson Index are lower as 0.1709 and 0.2919 respectively (Table 3).
Overall, 95 species belonging to 34 families were present in the Urban Aquatic Area (UAA). The Anatidae family with 15 species dominated the Urban Aquatic Area followed by the Scolopacidae with 9 species. The urban terrestrial area which was further classified for simplification into Human Settlement Area (HAS) and Urban Green Patches (UGP). The Human Settlement Area was represented by 41 species belonging to 27 families. This Area had a lesser number of species and was dominated by Sturnidae family (4 species) followed by Ardeidae, Columbidae, and Sylviinae (3 species each). The Urban Green Patches had 47 families (104 species) and Accipitrae family dominated the area (9 species) followed by Turdinae family (8 species).

Conclusion
The present study concluded that the Municipal area of Ajmer district represents near about 68% of the avifaunal diversity observed in different habitats of the Ajmer District as a whole [2,3,[5][6][7][8].
The study area includes the foothills of the oldest mountain range the Aravalli that provides an excellent habitat for various floral and faunal components hence the diversity is rich at the study area. The Urban Aquatic Areas (Anasagar Lake, Foy Sagar Lake, Chaurasiywas Talab, Paal Bichla Talab and Khanpura Talab) represented by the 96 species belonging to the 34 families. The Anasagar Lake, which is located in the central part of Ajmer Municipal area supports the 40 species [19], whereas another study conducted after two years by same authors documented 42 species from the same locality [20]. In the continuation another worker documented 48 species of birds from the Anasagar Lake and 42 species from the Foy Sagar Lake [21].