Farmers' perception of the ecosystem services provided by diurnal raptors in arid Rajasthan.

Farmers are the most important stakeholders in wildlife conservation in the agricultural landscape. Understanding the farmer's perceptions, attitude, behaviour, and knowledge toward conservation is critical in developing an effective conservation programme in human-dominated landscapes. We conducted semi-structured face-to-face interviews with 373 farmers to understand the farmer's perception of ecosystem services provided by diurnal raptors in the arid region of Rajasthan from July 2020 to February 2021 and from August 2021 to January 2022. We grouped ecosystem services and disservices into larger categories and estimated the correlation between them, finding that disservices are negatively correlated with benefits. Raptors were perceived as beneficial for their role in controlling rodents and pests, but negatively for poultry predation. In addition, we built a binomial generalised linear model with a logit function to better understand the factors that influence farmers' perceptions of raptors (positive or negative). We observed that males and females have different attitudes toward the ecosystem services provided by raptors. It is critical to understand social perceptions in order to conserve species that are rare on a global scale but may face negative perceptions on a local scale. Our study connects ecological information with socio-demographic factors, which can be useful in developing policy measures for raptor conservation.

Comparison of point and roadside transect methods to evaluate the abundance and richness of diurnal raptors in the arid region of Rajasthan.

Diurnal raptors show a wider distribution compared to other groups of birds including passerines, woodpeckers, and seriemas, but occur at lower-than-expected densities. Estimating the precise abundance is essential to achieve conservation goals but the methods used to estimate the populations of birds need to be appropriate to arrive at meaningful conclusions. We compared the two survey methods: roadside point count and strip transects, for estimating species richness and abundance of raptors in the arid landscape of Rajasthan. Roadside point counts and roadside strip transects were done on 50 transects between December 2019- February 2020 (with an average length of 20 km and a total distance of 3000 km) to assess the species richness and abundance of raptors. A total of 2954 observations of raptors belonging to 35 species were recorded using both methods. Mann Whitney U test result showed no significant difference in species richness and abundance estimates between both methods (p = 0.206). The point count method yielded a higher relative abundance of 2.79 individuals [10 km2]-1h-1 than the 1.90 individuals [10 km2]-1h-1 obtained during the strip transect. Also, the number of unidentified species were less for point counts. Extrapolation values indicated that both the methods do not differ much for the detection of unsampled species. The choice of survey method depends on the objectives of the study, but our results favor the use of point counts rather than strip transects to survey raptors in open habitats. The information generated from this study is expected to provide the most efficient method to study the abundance and distribution of raptors in similar landscapes.

Synthesis, optical resolution, absolute configuration, and osteogenic activity of cis-pterocarpans.

A convenient synthesis of natural and synthetic pterocarpans was achieved in three steps. Optical resolution of the respective enantiomers was accomplished by analytical and semi-preparative HPLC on a chiral stationary phase. For medicarpin and its synthetic derivative 9-demethoxymedicarpin, the absolute configuration was confirmed by a combination of experimental LC-ECD coupling and quantum-chemical ECD calculations. (-)-Medicarpin and (-)-9-demethoxymedicarpin are both 6aR,11aR-configured, and consequently the corresponding enantiomers, (+)-medicarpin and (+)-9-demethoxymedicarpin, possess the 6aS,11aS-configuration. A comparative mechanism study for osteogenic (bone forming) activity of medicarpin (racemic versus enantiomerically pure material) revealed that (+)-(6aS,11aS)-medicarpin (6a) significantly increased the bone morphogenetic protein-2 (BMP2) expression and the level of the bone-specific transcription factor Runx-2 mRNA, while the effect was opposite for the other enantiomer, (-)-(6aR,11aR)-medicarpin (6a), and for the racemate, (±)-medicarpin, the combined effect of both the enantiomers on transcription levels was observed.