Female Asian Elephants in Nagarahole National Park, Southern India ” Has Been Carried out by Mr

RESOURCE AVAILABILITY , WITHIN -CLAN AND BETWEEN -CLAN AGONISTIC INTERACTIONS , AND DOMINANCE RELATIONSHIPS AMONGST FEMALE ASIAN ELEPHANTS IN NAGARAHOLE NATIONAL PARK , SOUTHERN INDIA A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Hansraj Gautam Evolutionary and Organismal Biology Unit Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Bengaluru 560064, India. September 2019 ii CERTIFICATE This is to certify that the work presented in this thesis titled “ Resource Availability, Within-Clan and Between-Clan Agonistic Interactions, and Dominance Relationships amongst Female Asian Elephants in Nagarahole National Park, Southern India ” has been carried out by Mr. Hansraj Gautam under my supervision at the Evolutionary and Organismal Biology Unit, Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Bengaluru, India, and that the results in this thesis have not previously formed the basis for the award of any other degree, diploma, or fellowship. Date: Prof. T.N.C. Vidya iii iv DECLARATION I declare that the matter presented in my thesis titled “Resource Availability, Within-Clan and Between-Clan Agonistic Interactions, and Dominance Relationships amongst Female Asian Elephants in Nagarahole National Park, Southern India ” is the result of studies carried out by me at the Evolutionary and Organismal Biology Unit of the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Bangalore, India, under the supervision of Prof. T.N.C. Vidya, and that this work has not been submitted elsewhere for any other degree. In keeping with the general practice of reporting scientific observations, due acknowledgement has been made wherever the work described has been based on the findings of other investigators. Any omission, which might have occurred by oversight, is regretted. Place: Bengaluru Hansraj Gautam Date: v vi To my parents and Neha vii viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS To the means which held my wings and pushed the ends further away. अर , य भागती कबतक चलोगी ? मुझे ओ वंचके ! कब तक छलोगी ? चुराओगी कहाँ तक दाँव मेरा ? रखोगी रोक कबतक पाँव मेरा ? अभी भी सव है उ"दाम तुमसे, #दय क$ भावना &न'काम तुमसे, चले संघषx आ ठ याम तुमसे, क-ँ गा अ.त तक संाम तमसेु । कहाँ तक शि3त से वंचत करोगी ? कहाँ तक 4स"धयां मेर हरोगी ? तु6हारा छ"म सारा शेष होगा , न संचय कणx का &न :शेष होगा । कवच -कु 8डल गया ; पर , :ाण तो ह;, भुजा म= शि3त , धनु पर बाण तो ह;, गई एकि@न तो सब कु छ गया 3या ? बचा मुझम= नहं कु छ भी नया 3या ? -from Rashmirathi by Ramdhari Singh ‘Dinkar’ I read this to myself during my weakest moments. I should tell myself that it must mean that I had life in me even in those moments. I dedicate my thesis and my achievements to my parents, who have done more than they could to make it possible for me to reach here. Their belief in me is dear to me and I can never forget the sacrifices they have made in extremely hard situations to ensure that I keep ix progressing. On days when I felt that I have lost it all, their presence over phone made all the difference and kept me going. My father has been the world for me, especially during my school days. He could almost always convince me that I was capable of doing every possible thing. Life was so comfortable and full of happiness when I was around him rather than away. I remember the time when he used to drop me to my school on his cycle and I wish life had always been as smooth as those moments when I could just watch the world without having to worry about anything, for he was there to take care of everything. Bigger sacrifices have come from my mother who had to spend most of her life in scarcity in our village, while my father and I lived a more comfortable urban life. There were times when I used to visit my home, half of which was without any wall, and felt like wanting myself to run away from the sight, for the contrast with my comfort at JNC hostel was too painful to acknowledge even to myself. Or maybe I did not have the courage to face for even a week what my mother was living everyday. I wish I will get to spend more time with my mother and my father in future. Of all the people, I am extremely lucky to have the company of Neha, my truest friend and the best person I know. To that statement though, I must also add that we two together are the best two people I know. We have been partners in many a small crimes, partners in watching many a big dreams, and we have also been partners in dreading that many of those dreams may shatter. Life in JNC wouldn’t have been the same without her constant presence, and with her around, I have never felt away from home. I will not be able to express in words my gratitude to Dr. TNC Vidya, my PhD advisor. The last eight years have been a great learning experience while working with her and she has been my academic mentor in the truest sense. After my masters, I badly wanted to work on wildlife biology, even though I knew nothing, and I was lucky to have gotten the opportunity to join her lab as a project assistant and be in the amazing place called Nagarahole National Park. One thing that I did not appreciate during the early years was that how good it is to be a lab where, unlike many other places, the students do not have to worry about field permits or the funding required for field work. She has ensured to her best capacity that these issues do not constrain the work of the students and I have been fortunate enough to not have to worry about them. x During my PhD, I have had full freedom to take the research questions in the direction that I wanted to. It has greatly helped that I had her full interest when I discussed my work with her and her suggestions and constructive criticism have helped in vastly improving my thesis. She has patiently tried to understand whatever I said and I know that it has taken extra effort since I am very poor in articulating myself. She has also been very patient in dealing with my many careless mistakes both in my work and my conduct in the lab. One of the many positive parts of my time in this lab has been that I got full freedom and liberty to have my own work schedule, for which I am thankful to her and I believe that I have not misused this liberty. I must also admit here that I have certainly not been the most responsible of the lab members when it came to taking care of the lab. I am especially grateful to her for being a very caring person and for being around when I faced some difficult situations in my personal life. I must also add to acknowledgements the collective entity that is our lab, in which people have maintained a healthy working environment. The credit must go to every past and present member of the lab and I wish it maintains a welcoming nature for everyone. When I look back and remember the time when I joined this lab, I was a pretty blank slate in both professional and academic terms, and it is in this lab that I have learnt and grown as an individual as well as an academic. I am thankful to my senior colleagues, Nandini and Keerthi, for the great time I had with them both in the field and the lab. My first year in the field was when Nandini was around and she was very helpful to me while learning about the field, especially with regard to learning Kannada. With her and Evangeline around, I had a nice time as we enjoyed many small things that we did. Also, as a senior colleague in the field, she was caring and ensured that as newcomers to the field, we did not face many problems. I had a fun time with Keerthi and we explored many new things and places in the field. It was also nice to have her humour and made the field time cheerful with her wit. She has also always been ready to help when I wanted some help with analyses as well as with other stuff about elephants. I also want to thank Revathe, who was my colleague during my last two field years. I have troubled her on many occasions when my field jeep would give up either in the field or in field station in the morning itself. She was helpful enough to have come with the new jeep to pull and start my jeep. xi Evangeline, along with whom I had joined the lab as a project assistant, was a cheerful person. My initial forays in the forests of Nagarahole were when I was did the transect work with her and many of the transect walks in the rainy season were thrilling. I think the number of transects we covered was pretty good given that we were new to the forests. I must also add that she was more organized and sincere with regard to our task as she also nicely maintained the herbarium specimens and species identity in early days which made keeping track of all species easier than what it would have been if I had done it.

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