Section 1 Introduction

This is the readable version that showcases analyses carried out to test the impacts of rainforest restoration on vocalizing biodiversity in the Anamalai hills of the Western Ghats biodiversity hotspot.

1.1 Attribution

Please contact the following in case of interest in the project.

  • Vijay Ramesh (lead author)
    • PhD student, Columbia University

1.2 Data access

The data used in this work is archived on Zenodo.

1.3 Data processing

The data processing for this project is described in the following sections. Navigate through them using the links in the sidebar.

1.4 Main Text Figure 1

Sites corresponding to acoustic recorder deployment locations across the Valparai plateau of the Anamalai hills. The above figure showcases a gradient of forest regeneration across the Valparai plateau. Sites shown in green represent undisturbed benchmark rainforest sites, sites shown in orange represent actively restored forest sites and sites shown in purple represent naturally regenerating forest sites. Ecological restoration is currently being carried out in cooperation with three plantation companies in the Valparai plateau. For more information with respect to the weeding and active restoration protocol, please see methods in Hariharan and Raman (2021) and Osuri et al. (2019). Over the last two decades, the ecological restoration efforts have resulted in restoration of over 100 ha of degraded forests. This map was prepared using 30m resolution SRTM data (Farr et al. 2007) and ESRI satellite imagery is used as a basemap.

1.5 Main Text Figure 2

Ecological restoration across the Valparai plateau of the Anamalai hills. (a) Images of an actively restored forest fragment (Selaliparai) were taken in 2007 and in 2021. Habitat and vegetation structure has responded positively to active restoration (Osuri et al. 2019) (Photo credit: T R Shankar Raman). (b) AudioMoth audio recorders were deployed across naturally regenerating, actively restored, and benchmark (not shown in picture) sites across the Valparai plateau (Photo credit: Vijay Ramesh).