AVIFAUNAL COMPOSITION OF VARIOUS MICROHABITATS OF SOUTHERN NAGAUR (PARBATSAR, KUCHAMAN, NAWA AND MAKRANA), RAJASTHAN

Present study comprises a comprehensive dataset about the Avifaunal diversity of one of the climatic transition zone i.e., Southern Nagur, Rajasthan. The Study was conducted under the classified six different microhabitats i.e., Agricultural Field Plains, Sambhar Lake and Other Waterbodies, Aravalli Hill Patches, Urban Settlements, Scrub Thorn Forest and Open Grasslands & Wastelands. The key aspect of present study is to provide well structured and extensive information on the avian diversity, their distribution and their habitat association at the study area. A total of 191 Avifaunal species belonging to 21 Orders and 61 Families were recorded from study area. A total of 7 Feeding Guilds were observed in the study area viz., Carnivores, Frugivores, Granivores, Herbivores, Insectivores, Nectivores and Omnivored. The Migratory status and IUCN status of the observed species was also assessed. Jaccard and Sorenson index’s was highest for the Agricultural and Grassland Microhabitats.


INTRODUCTION
The state of Rajasthan can be divided into two major climatic zones i.e. Arid and Semiarid, by the Aravalli Mountain ranges. The districts lying near Aravalli mountain ranges act as a transition zone between such two climatic zones. With variety of microhabitats in the state of Rajasthan along with two Ramsar Sites i.e., are Keoladeo National Park and Sambhar Lake (Islam and Rahmani, 2004). Rajasthan is rich in various floral and faunal components including the avifaunal diversity with estimation of about 500 species of birds (BNHS, 2011b).
Birds are one of the best indicators of environmental quality, health and they easily depicted significant variations against changes in the microhabitat quality in both the terms spatial as well as temporal. Birds also exhibit the relationship with the structure and characteristics of the microhabitat (Cody, 1978). The population and community structure of bird is directly affected by the food availability, nest site availability, human exposure and presence of other threat (Wiens, 1989). Studying the bird population is useful to monitor the long term changes in habitat quality and responses of birds to both natural and anthropogenic induced environmental changes (Wiens, 1989).
As, this is well known fact, that the transition zones exhibited greater amount of diversity as they shared nearly all characteristics of both the nearby microhabitats. Inspite of such importance still many transition zones including the Nagaur district are not evaluated properly for their faunal diversity including the avifaunal compositions. The present study is an approach to fulfill such gap as it comprises the avifaunal diversity of southern region of Naguar district in classified six different microhabitats i.e., Agricultural Field Plains, Sambhar Lake and Other Waterbodies, Aravalli Hill Patches, Urban Settlements, Scrub Thorn Forest and Open Grasslands & Wastelands. The main purpose of this study is to provide well structured and extensive information on the avian diversity, distribution and habitat association of avifauna of southern region of Nagaur, administratively comes under the Parbatsar, Nawa, Makrana and Kuchaman towns of Nagaur District.

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
The objective of present study is to prepare an avifaunal inventory of the study area by observing all six microhabitats and to identify the feeding guild (Simberloff and Dayan 1991), IUCN Status (IUCN, 2020) and Migration Pattern (Able, 1995) of the documented bird species of the study area.

PROFILE OF STUDY AREA
The study was carried out in six microhabitats at southern region of Nagaur district, Rajasthan. The study area located between 26°54'20.1"N 74°46'31.5"E at transition zone between arid and semiarid climatic zones of Rajasthan.
Four seasons are recognized at the study area based on rainfall i.e., Summer (April-June), Pre-monsoon (July-September), Monsoon (October-December) and Post-monsoon (January-March). The December to January is the coolest time period and May to June is the warmest period at the study area. The study area is well dominated by Agricultural Lands followed by Scrub Thorn Forest and Wasteland. The western parts of the study area are covered by Aravalli Mountain Ranges. Soils are relatively fertile and support all agricultural activity in the study area. Four types of soils have been reported from the study area viz., Clay, Clay Loam, Sandy Loam and Sandy Soil. The area lies under the transition zone of arid and semiarid climate and is represented by chiefly Dry mixed deciduous thorn forest along with some bushy plants Anogeissus pendula and Capparis decidua. The plainer parts of the study area is dominated by Acacia nilotica, Acacia senegal, Salvadora persica etc. The nearby of seasonal rivers and streams the soil is of sandy with good amount of moisture and mainly populated by the Dalbergia sissoo as the common tree, while other important species are Azadirachta indica, Prosopis cineraria and Prosopis juliflora. The degraded areas at the catchment are dominated by an invasive plant Prosopis juliflora. Due to high saline condition the other species does not survive easily at the study area but the growth of Prosopis juliflora is in abundance.
Agro-Ecosystems or Agricultural area covers the largest portion of study area. The area is mostly cultivated during the monsoon season. Some of the important crops like Pearl millet, Cluster bean, Sesame, Green gram, Moth bean are the main seasonal crops. However, in more fertile soil groundnut, wheat, cumin, cotton, mustard and gram are also grown on fairly large scale.

DATA COLLECTION
Regular field surveys were carried out from August 2019 to August 2020 resulting in a total 52 surveys in six microhabitats: 20 in summer, 20 in winter and 12 in monsoon. The length of transect remained constant in all the surveys that is 1000 m (1KM). The time remained constant in all microhabitat, morning surveys was carried out from 6:00 Am to 9:00 Am and evening surveys was carried out from 4:00 Pm to 7:00 Pm. Olympus Binocular 10*50X was used for on field observations and Canon-Eos 1300D camera was used for photography. For identification of birds "Book of Indian Birds" by Salim ali (Ali, 1992) and "A field guide on the birds of the Indian subcontinent" Grimmett (Grimmett et al., 1998) was referred. Checklist was prepared using various methods like Adhoc, Area Search Method, Point Count Method, Rolling Bird Survey Method and Call Based Identification Method (Urfi et al., 2005).

Sorenson Index
To assess the association of species between two study sites, Sorensen's index of similarity (Sorenson, 1948) was calculated.

= 2 ( + )
Where j = number of species common to both sites; a = number of species at site A; b = number of species at site B

Jaccard Index
To assess the association of species between two study sites, Jaccard index of similarity was calculated.

= ( + − )
Where j = number of species common to both sites; a = number of species at site A; b = number of species at site B.
Most Birds in study area preferred Insectivore feeding guild as of 77 species of total 191 are insectivore followed by Carnivores (45), Granivores (24), Omnivores (23), Herbivores (11), Frugivores (10) and only one species of Nectivores. 119 out of total 191 species recorded in study area were identified as residential species of the area, 72 species were identified as Migratory species out of which 5 as Summer Migratory and 67 as Winter Migratory (  4).
During the entire period of study the maximum species was observed from the Water bodies microhabitat (95 species) followed by Scrub forest microhabitats (89). In contrast the minimum species represented by Urban settlements microhabitat (38 species). The higher amount of species diversity indicated the better quality and resource availability at that particular microhabitat.
Jaccard and Sorenson index's increasing values indicates the similarity between two microhabitats. The Agricultural and Grassland Microhabitats have highest values (Jaccard= 0.559, Sorenson= 0.717) are much similar to each other. Accipitrifor mes Accipitrida e

White eyed buzzard
Butastur teesa Carnivo rous R Least concern 6 Accipitrifor mes       Winter Migratory 67 Figure 4: Migratory status of species in study area Least concern 178 3 Near Threatened 8 4 Vulnerable 3

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
A total of 191 Avifaunal species belonging to 21 Orders and 61 Families were recorded from study area. The dominance among families was exhibited by family Anatidae (14 species with 7.33%, RDi) followed by Muscicapidae (12 species with 6.28% RDi), Accipitridae (11 species with 5.76% RDi) and Scolopacide (11 species with 5.76% RDi) respectively. Seven Feeding Guilds were identified during the study i.e., Insectivore (77 species) followed by Carnivores (45 species), Granivores (24 species), Omnivores (23 species), Herbivores (11 species), Frugivores (10 species) and Nectivores (1 species Most of birds inhabiting these areas are vulnerable to habitat degradation due to flaws in existing legal frameworks. In addition, community knowledge enhancements also should be strengthened for a sustainable conservation of bird species while maintaining their ecological interactions. Meanwhile Nagaur district act as a transition zone between Arid and Semi-arid habitats of Rajasthan but unfortunately still does not have any Important Bird & Biodiversity Area (IBA), it is strongly recommended to propose an Important Bird & Biodiversity Area (IBA). Simultaneously, further long-term studies are recommended that covering migratory seasons for the bird species along with and documentation and population assessment of other components of biodiversity that ultimately enhance the knowledge about the diversity and its importance to the people at the study area.