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Context: Kerala gets its first ever scientific bird atlas.

About Kerala Bird Atlas (KBA):

• It is first-of-its-kind state-level bird atlas in India.
• KBA was prepared based on systematic surveys held twice over 60 days a year during the wet (July to September) and dry (January to March) seasons between 2015 and 2020.

Significance:

• It has created solid baseline data about the distribution and abundance of various bird species across all major habitats giving an impetus for futuristic studies.
• It is Asia’s largest bird atlas in terms of geographical extent, sampling effort and species coverage derived from the aggregation of 25,000 checklists.
• It is considered to be a valuable resource for testing various ecological hypotheses and suggesting science-backed conservation measures.

Key outcomes:

• It accounted for nearly three lakh records of 361 species, including 94 very rare species, 103 rare species, 110 common species, 44 very common species, and 10 most abundant species.
• Species count was higher during the dry season than in the wet season.
• Species richness and evenness were higher in the northern and central districts than in the southern districts.
• Most of the endemics were concentrated in the Western Ghats while the threatened species were mostly along the coasts.

https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/kerala/kerala-gets-its-first-ever-scientific-bird-atlas/article38307794.ece

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