ASSESSMENT OF FAUNAL DIVERSITY OF A NATURAL FOREST AND AN ADJACENT PINUS MIXED PLANTATION FOREST IN YAGIRALA

Faunal diversity of the natural forest (Pamaragala Aranya Forest) and the University of SriJaycwardcncpura Pinus-ill ixed forest. in Yagirala forest reserve was assessed. TheUniversity Pinus - mixed forest has a dense undergrowth and tropical lowland tree species.The natural forest is a highly degraded forest due to past logging and prevailing illicitfelling. m. The University Pinus forest is a mixed forest which has a dense undergrowthand tropical lowland tree species.In this study. random line sampling method was used to enumerate fauna. Five plots oflOll III x 5 III each leaving gaps of 50 Ill. were used as a transect line. Fifteen survey lineshaving 60 plots in the Pinus - mixed forest and II survey lines having 51 plots in thenatural forest were assigned. The study was restricted to some selected faunal groups suchas birds, mammals. reptiles. fishes and some invertebrates (butterflies, land snails etc.).Pitfall trapping was used to assess the diversity of selected ground active invertebrategroups such as ants. beet lcs and spiders. For each forest. 10 survey lines were selected and:2 pitfall sampling points were located in each sampling plot for the location of pitfall traps.Two independent samples t-Tcst and the Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test were used tocompare the faunal diversity between the two forests.The results showed that there is no significant difference in the diversity of birds,mammals. butterflies. and ground active invertebrates such as ants. beetles and spidersbetween two forests. The diversity of land snails in the natural forest is significantlyhigher than the diversity of land snails in the Pinus - mixed forest. The diversity ofinvertebrates of the Pinus - mixed forest is significantly higher than the natural forest.According 10 the results of the present study. the Pinus - mixed forest also has a rich faunaldiversity. Therefore. il can he assumed that one or more reasons such as food. nestingplaces. protection for fauna in the Pinus - mixed forest. edge effects of Ihe surroundinghome gardens. and the effect of the rich faunal diversity in the natural have been affectedcousidcrahly 10 increase the diversity of some fauna in the Pinus - mixed forest.

Historical biogeography of the leopard (Panthera pardus) and its extinct Eurasian populations

Background: Resolving the historical biogeography of the leopard (Panthera pardus) is a complex issue, because patterns inferred from fossils and from molecular data lack congruence. Fossil evidence supports an African origin, and suggests that leopards were already present in Eurasia during the Early Pleistocene. Analysis of DNA sequences however, suggests a more recent, Middle Pleistocene shared ancestry of Asian and African leopards. These contrasting patterns led researchers to propose a two-stage hypothesis of leopard dispersal out of Africa: an initial Early Pleistocene colonisation of Asia and a subsequent replacement by a second colonisation wave during the Middle Pleistocene. The status of Late Pleistocene European leopards within this scenario is unclear: were these populations remnants of the first dispersal, or do the last surviving European leopards share more recent ancestry with their African counterparts? Results: In this study, we generate and analyse mitogenome sequences from historical samples that span the entire modern leopard distribution, as well as from Late Pleistocene remains. We find a deep bifurcation between African and Eurasian mitochondrial lineages (~ 710 Ka), with the European ancient samples as sister to all Asian lineages (~ 483 Ka). The modern and historical mainland Asian lineages share a relatively recent common ancestor (~ 122 Ka), and we find one Javan sample nested within these. Conclusions: The phylogenetic placement of the ancient European leopard as sister group to Asian leopards suggests that these populations originate from the same out-of-Africa dispersal which founded the Asian lineages. The coalescence time found for the mitochondrial lineages aligns well with the earliest undisputed fossils in Eurasia, and thus encourages a re-evaluation of the identification of the much older putative leopard fossils from the region. The relatively recent ancestry of all mainland Asian leopard lineages suggests that these populations underwent a severe population bottleneck during the Pleistocene. Finally, although only based on a single sample, the unexpected phylogenetic placement of the Javan leopard could be interpreted as evidence for exchange of mitochondrial lineages between Java and mainland Asia, calling for further investigation into the evolutionary history of this subspecies