BENGALURU: An international study published in Ecology Letters, ranked seventh globally, has highlighted the ecological significance of rain-filled tree hollows in forests, with key contributions from Kerala-based scientists.
The study found that water-filled tree hollows, described as “islands in the sky”, support complex aquatic micro-communities of insects and larvae, linked through intricate food webs. Though small in size, these microhabitats play a vital role in nutrient cycling and energy flow within forests. Researchers observed that the survival of these communities depends not only on water quality but also on forest connectivity. Fragmentation restricts species dispersal between trees, increasing the risk of local extinction.The Western Ghats showed particularly high functional diversity, attributed to long-term climatic stability and evolutionary history.
The research team included Dr KS Anoop Das and KT Fahis from the Centre for Conservation Ecology, MES Mampad College (Autonomous), Kerala, in collaboration with scientists from the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL), ETH Zurich, SUPSI (Switzerland), and UNICAMP (Brazil).
The study was supported by a Government of India DST-SERB (now ANRF) grant awarded to Dr Anoop Das.