Navinder Singh

My present focus mainly focuses at generating ecological information on less studied and rare species, and using this information to optimize the existing monitoring process. Often we tend to ignore the ‘what, why and how’ questions while monitoring. Also monitoring effort is not often quantified which makes it difficult to assess the existing efficiency (costs, time, manpower) and precision of the process. My work will be aimed at achieving the dual benefits of improving the monitoring process for conservation by reducing the total effort required and also increasing precision by using latest spatial and statistical models. Most of the work is focused on rare central Asian ungulate species in the remote and understudied regions.

Another vital focus in conservation is involving local people and their traditional knowledge for monitoring and conservation of rare and exploited species as well as resolve human-wildlife conflicts. I am a part of the high altitude program of the Nature Conservation Foundation, Mysore, India and International Snow Leopard Trust, Seattle, USA. The Himalayan high altitudes, home of the snow leopard and its mountain ungulate prey, have also been home to several pastoral communities. Livestock grazing is the predominant land use in this harsh landscape, and there are frequent conflicts between people and wildlife. Our studies have established the occurrence of resource competition between livestock and Trans-Himalayan wild herbivores. They have developed an ecological understanding of human-wildlife conflicts, in particular due to livestock predation by wild carnivores, and the social contexts in which they take place. They have led to an understanding of the ecology and nature of threats to the snow leopard, the wolf, and their prey, in the face of a rapidly changing socio-economy and land use.

Habitat and landscape ecology, behavioural ecology, sexual segregation, sampling and monitoring of rare species, life history, climate change, snow ecology, wildlife livestock interactions, northern populations and ecosystems.

2008 - Postdoctoral Research Associate on the Leverhulme Trust funded , "Optimising monitoring as a conservation tool", with Dr. E.J.Milner-Gulland (Imperial College London).

2004-2008: PhD in Ecology, "Animal - Habitat relationships in High altitude rangelands", with Drs. Nigel G Yoccoz and Joseph L Fox. (University of Tromsø, Tromsø, Norway).

2000-2002: Msc. Environment Management, "Climate changes mitigation strategies for Indian forestry and transportation sectors", Forest Research Institute & University, Dehradun, India

1997-2000: Bachelor of Science in Botany(Honours). University of Delhi, India. Sri Venkateswara College.

September 2008 - Optimising monitoring as a conservation tool - to develop a framework for optimal monitoring of conservation activities, integrating both monitoring for compliance and monitoring for detection of biodiversity trends.

January 2007 - Snow leopard and its prey species in the Gya Miru and TsoKar Wildlife sanctuaries in Ladakh, India. Nature Conservation Foundation, International Snow Leopard Trust, Seattle. USA.

Singh, N.J., E.J. Milner-Gulland (In press) Monitoring ungulates in Central Asia: current constraints and future potentials. Oryx.

Singh, N.J., Grachev, I.A., Bekenov, A.B. & Milner-Gulland, E.J. (2010) Tracking greenery in central Asia - the migration of the saiga antelope. Diversity and Distributions, 16, 663-675.

Singh, N.J., Grachev, I.A., Bekenov, A.B. & Milner-Gulland, E.J. (2010) Saiga antelope calving site selection is increasingly driven by human disturbance. Biological Conservation, 143, 1770-1779.

Singh, N.J., Yoccoz, N.G., Cote, S.D., Lecomte, N., Fox, J.L. (2010) Scale and selection of habitat and resources: Tibetan argali in High altitude rangelands. Canadian Journal of Zoology, 88, 436-447.

Singh, N.J., Bonenfant, C., Yoccoz, N.G., Cote, S.D. (2010) Sexual segregation in Eurasian wild sheep. Behavioral Ecology, 21, 410-418.

Struve, J., Lorenzen, K., Blanchard, J., Borger, L., Bunnefeld, N., Edwards, C., Hortal, J., MacCall, A., Matthiopoulos, J., Van Moorter, B., Ozgul, Ap., Royer, F., Singh, N.J., Yesson, C., Bernard, R. (2010) Lost in space? Searching for directions in the spatial modelling of individuals, populations and species ranges. Biology Letters. doi:10.1098/rsbl.2010.0338.

Aiyadurai, A., Singh, N. J., Milner-Gulland, E.J. (2010) Wildlife hunting by indigenous tribes: a case study from Arunachal Pradesh, Northeast India. Oryx. doi:10.1017/S0030605309990937.

Singh, N.J, Yoccoz, N.G., Bhatnagar, Y.V., Fox, J.L. (2009) Using habitat suitability models to sample rare species in high-altitude ecosystems: A case study with Tibetan argali. Biodiversity and Conservation, 18: 2893-2908.

Singh, N.J., Milner-Gulland, E.J. Conserving a moving target: planning monitoring and protection for a migratory species as its distribution changes. Journal of Applied Ecology.

Singh, N.J., Yoccoz, N.G., Bhatnagar, Y.V., Lecomte, N, Fox, J.L. Changing nomadic pastoralism in Transhimalayan rangelands of India - causes and consequences. Ecology and Society.

Singh, N.J., Amgalabaatar, S., Reading, R.P. Grouping patterns in argali in the Ikh Nart reserve , Mongolia. Mongolian Journal of Biological Sciences.

Ahmad, R., Mishra, C., Singh, N.J., Kaul, R., Bhatnagar, Y.V. Forage or security: Trade-offs in lactating females of a mountain ungulate, the Markhor. Endangered Species Research

Bhatnagar, Y.V. & Singh, N.J. (In press) Nomadism in the Indian Changthang: changes and implications on society and biodiversity.

Singh, N.J., Bhatnagar Y.V. & Fox, J.L. (2010) Tibetan argali in India, other Himalayan areas and nearby areas in the western Tibet Autonomous Region, China. Argali Biology and Conservation Edited by Richard Reading. Denver Zoological Foundation.

Ito, T.Y., Shinodal, M., Esipov, A., Grachev, Y., Singh, N. J. and Milner-Gulland, E.J. (2010). Satellite tracking of saigas in Ustyurt. Saiga News 10: 10-11.

Leon, J., Singh, N. J., Arylov, Y.N., Obgenova, O.B., Milner-Gulland, E.J. (2010) Can we use local knowledge to map saiga distributions? Saiga News 10: 13-14.

Singh, N.J., Amgalabaatar, S., Reading, R.P. (2010) Temporal dynamics of group size and sexual segregation in Ibex. Exploration into the Biological Resources of Mongolia (Halle/Saale, Germany)/ Erforsch. biol. Ress. Mongolei (Halle/Saale), 11.

Singh, N.J. Kuhl, A. & Milner-Gulland, E.J. Conserving migratory species: science, policy and implementation. for Animal Conservation

Singh N.J., Gaillard J-M., Tuljapurkar, S., Coulson, T. The geometry of life history. for Proceedings of the Royal Society-Biological Sciences.

Brown, M., Singh, N.J., Milner-Gulland, E.J. A trophy hunting model for saiga antelope in Kazakhstan. for Journal of Applied Ecology

Milner-Gulland, E.J., Singh, N.J. The saiga antelope of central Asia: lessons from a long term conservation programme. for Conservation Biology

Singh, N.J., Whitebread, E, O'Neill, H, Leon, J., Obgenova, D., Manzhiev, Kh., Khludnev, A, Arylov, Iu. N., Milner-Gulland, E. J. Shrinking distribution of saiga antelope in the pre Caspian Russia. for Diversity and Distributions

Singh, N.J. Biodiversity offsets- where do we stand and where are we heading. for Trends in Ecology and Evolution