Mapping of National Parks and Wildlife Sanctuaries Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve, Maharashtra By Ambica Paliwal Principal Investigator Dr. V. B. Mathur WII-NNRMS-MoEF Project Acknowledgements We would like to gratefully acknowledge the following people and organizations for their assistance and advice that have made the project successful. National Natural Resource Management System (NNRMS) and Ministry of Environment and Forest for funding the project We are thankful to Director, WII, Sh. P. R. Sinha for granting the permission to conduct this study. We are grateful to to Maharashtra Forest Department. Thanks to Sh. B. Majumdar, PCCF (Wildlife) Maharashtra and Sh. S.H. Patil, CF, TATR for the facilitation they provided. We would also like to express my thanks to Sh. Vashist, ACF, TATR for sharing his vast knowledge and to all the three Range Officers. We wish thanks to all frontline staff and residents of TATR for easing the field work. We are grateful to Survey of India (SOI) for providing the spatial database and National Remote Sensing Agency (NRSA) Hyderabad for providing satellite images of TATR Back at WII, we would like to express my deep sense of gratitude to Dr. P. K. Mathur, Sh. Qamar Qureshi, Dr. G. S. Rawat Dr. K. Sankar, Dr. S. A. Hussain, Mrs. Bitapi Sinha and Dr. Y.V..Jhala. We are thankful to Project Tiger for the carnivore data. We are thankful to the competent team of WII library staff particularly Sh. M.S. Rana for providing all library facilities. Special thanks to Sh. Verma, Mrs. Shashi and Mrs. Sunita, Sh. Madan, Sh. Kishan, Sh. Mahesh Ghosh and Sh. Virender for the help they provided. i We are thankful to Dr. Pnnalal, Dr. Manoj Aggarwal, Ms. Nilanjna Roy and Sh. Ved Prakash Ola for RS & GIS support. Thanks to Sh. Babu and Sh. Saklani for their help in indentification of plant specimens. We are thankful to Sh. Rajeev Thapa, Sh. Jyoti Nautiyal, Sh. Virendra and Sh. Pundir and Sh. Veerappan for their support. [Dr. Vunod. B. Mathur] [Ambica Paliwal] Supervisor Researcher ii Summary 1. Wildlife conservation planning inter-alia requires basic information on distribution and abundance of natural resources. Knowledge of presence or absence of wildlife species and their distribution across a landscape is critical for making sound wildlife management decisions. Ungulate species form a major prey base and therefore play a pivotal role in maintenance of forest ecosystem equilibrium, as they help in shaping its structure, composition and also directly or indirectly affect other animals. However, efforts towards conservation and management of wildlife are often hampered due to non-availability of good quality data on species, habitats and suitability of the habitats for different species. In-situ conservation of biodiversity requires multi- disciplinary approaches sustained by a foundation of sound scientific and technological information. With this background the study aims to map landuse/landcover patterns and to assess spatial structure, composition and configuration of landscape and vegetation types in it; spatial and ecological distribution of ungulate species in response to seasons and management status; habitat suitability and site occupancy using spatially explicit ungulate-habitat model and to present the spatial database of TATR in GIS domain. 2. The present study was carried out in Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve (TATR). It lies in civil district of Chandrapur, eastern edge of Maharashtra. The area lies between 20º 04' 53"N to 20º 25' 51"N latitude to 79º 13' 13"E to 79º 33' 34"E longitude. The extent of the total area of TATR is 625.40 km² out of which Tadoba National Park (TNP) comprises 116.55 km² while Andhari Wildlife Sanctuary (AWS) covers 508.85 km². TNP forms the core northern zone of TATR while AWS consists of two ranges Moharli and Kolsa, which form central and southern zones of the TATR respectively. 3. Data was collected from primary and secondary sources. Field work was carried out between February 2005 and January 2007. A total of iii 810 GPS points were collected for ground truthing. The area was sampled using systematic stratified sampling approach. Stratification was done using administrative unit i.e. a forest beat. A total of 50 line transects of 2 km length were laid in all 34 beats of TATR covering all vegetation types of the study area. On these transects 500 circular plots were laid for vegetation quantification, equidistant at 200 m interval, while 20 plots were also laid randomly. For ungulate density estimation, transects were walked in summer and winter seasons. Each transect was repeated 4-6 times in each season so as to capture the variation. IRS-P6 LISS IV data was used for landuse/landcover mapping and canopy density mapping of TATR. Spatial structure of TATR landscape was described using software package FRAGSTATS. Data from vegetation plots was used to quantify structure and composition of five major vegetation types delineated from satellite data. Transect data was used to derive ungulate density estimates using ‘DISTANCE’, program. The estimates were compared with previous studies and some other tropical studies. Biomass and other population parameters were also estimated and compared as a part of the study. For ungulate-habitat modelling, Ecological Niche Factor Analysis (ENFA) was used. ENFA assumes that the environmental conditions are optimal where species is most frequently found. Each transect was considered as the representative of the animal presence data. Mean encounter rate (ER) for each species on each transect was derived and was categorized under five wieghtage classes. A grid of 157 cells each of 4 km² (2X2km) was overlaid on the study area. A total of 21 ecogeographical variables were used for analyses which were categorized under four environmental descriptor classes, topographic variables; anthropogenic variables; habitat variables; and hydrological variables. Habitat suitability maps were then evaluated for predictive accuracy by a cross validation procedure and validated maps were obtained. Survey of India (SOI) generated the spatial data base in GIS domain and maps were composed in WII. iv 4. Vegetation maps serve as a valuable tool in natural resource management and conservation planning. Cluster analysis was used to for mapping ten landuse/landcover classes. Mixed Bamboo Forest occupied the maximum proportion of study area (75.81%) while the Riparian Forest occupied the least (0.61%). As a result of canopy density mapping the forests were sub grouped into five canopy density classes. The structural analysis of TATR landscape reveals its heterogeneous nature with large variations in patch size, but with low diversity, low evenness and intermediate interspersion of forest types. This study has focussed on integrating satellite forest classification and forest inventory data for studying forest landscape patterns. IRS P6 LISS IV data has been observed to have an immense potential to minutely capture the structural details of the landscape precisely due to its high resolution and multispectral nature. Knowledge of floristic composition and vegetation structure is critical for understanding the dynamics of forest ecosystems. Vegetation structure and composition of five major vegetation types delineated from satellite data were studied. The cluster analysis grouped the species into seven different communities. A total of 3779 tree individuals belonging to 55 species were recorded. Floristic analysis of TATR revealed that Tectona grandis had maximum Importance Value Index (IVI). Fabaceae, Combretaceae and Caesalpiniaceae were found to be dominant families in TATR. The population structure characterized by the presence of adequate number of seedlings, saplings and young trees depicts satisfactory regeneration status of major tree species. 5. Population density, structure and biomass are the measures to examine the complex relationships between wild animal species and their habitats. Among management units TNP had higher density of ungulates compared to AWS. However, AWS contributed maximum biomass to entire TATR. The three herbivore species, Chital, Sambar and Gaur together contributed 84% to the total biomass of TATR. A considerable increase in densities of all the ungulates was observed on comparison with previous studies. TNP has larger mean group sizes of v Chital, Sambar and Wild pig than AWS. It was attributed to open spaces in TNP. Chital showed significant difference in the mean group size (MGS) between the seasons. The sex ratios were found to be in favour of females. The fawn per female ratio was found to decrease as compared to earlier estimates. 6. The association between both habitat variables and ungulate abundance was examined by conducting habitat modelling. ENFA was used to model the habitat of five ungulate species. Model identified that the presence of canopy was one of the main determinants of habitat utilization by large ungulates at TATR, with all species associating with various canopy classes. All canopy classes except non-forest were favoured by ungulates. Canopy density below 30% and 30-40% was most favoured. The model emphasized that the burnt areas had positive influence on the ungulate distribution. Further, the ungulates showed the proximity towards open areas dominated by road network. Chital showed highest affinity towards open areas and least was shown by Sambar. High elevation was generally avoided by ungulates except Sambar. A majority of ungulates responded negatively towards habitations as due to these, some good habitats