Plant functional traits connect biodiversity to ecosystem processes, serving as key metrics for assessing how biota responds to environmental conditions. Functional seed traits are critical because they underpin recruitment and colonization, shaping biodiversity patterns and influencing ecosystem resilience. Yet, seed traits remain underrepresented in major data repositories, with severe gaps in the tropics. Climatic, geological, and historical differences between tropical and temperate regions drive distinct regeneration dynamics, suggesting that the paucity of tropical seed trait data limits our ability to predict regeneration niches and weakens global models largely based on temperate ecosystems. To address this gap, we introduce the Tropical Seed Trait Database (TSTD), an open-access repository spanning the full ecological spectrum of tropical seeds. The TSTD is conceived as a community-driven repository of primary data contributed directly by data owners, rather than as a secondary aggregation of global databases. It was built through contributions from ecologists working across all tropical regions, reached through direct contact, and its first version compiles 78 datasets, totaling 137 583 records across 44 functional traits. Covering 5115 species in 33 countries, with the Neotropics overrepresented, the TSTD marks a crucial step toward more inclusive, globally representative trait databases that can open multiple research avenues.

Tree phenology plays an important role in determining the structure and function of tropical forest communities. However, there are few long-term studies on tree phenology from South Asia. We monitored 716 trees of 54 species monthly from 2011 to 2023 for leaf flush, flowering, and fruiting in Pakke Tiger Reserve, Arunachal Pradesh, India. We examined monthly patterns in the percentage of species and trees in leaf flush, flower and fruit and characterized phenological seasonality using circular statistics. Flowering periodicity was classified using Fourier analysis and we examined the relationships between phenological activity and temperature, rainfall, solar radiation and daylength using GAMLSS. Leaf flush and flowering were moderately seasonal, peaking in the warm dry season months of March to May. Fruiting patterns and their seasonality differed among dispersal modes. At the community level and for bird-dispersed species, fruiting was bimodal and relatively aseasonal, peaking in April and October. The highly seasonal fruiting of mammal-dispersed species peaked in October, while that of mechanically-dispersed species was bimodal and concentrated in the dry season months. The majority of species (78.13%) and trees (51.17%) flowered annually. Daylength, solar radiation and minimum temperature had significant nonlinear effects on phenology. This indicated the existence of narrow ranges of optimal climatic conditions for phenology, which could be affected by climate change. Our study emphasizes the need for long-term monitoring to rigorously quantify phenological patterns, particularly in the context of rapid global change. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest.

Large-scale and long-term baselines on climate-sensitive phenology of widespread tree species are lacking in the Indian subcontinent. Citizen scientists can help bridge this information gap by contributing simple, technology-based data. Here we describe an India-wide initiative called SeasonWatch, with preliminary insights into contributor behaviour and species phenology. Between 2011 and 2019, cumulative contributor numbers have increased every year, although consistent contribution remains constant and low. We describe seasonal and spatial phenological patterns in most-observed species based on repeated monitoring and one-time 'bioblitz' events. We study in detail the flowering phenology of one particular species, Cassia fistula, which appears to show aberrant phenology, reflecting a potential shift away from culturally known flowering dates. We conclude that citizen science-contributed information can be a valuable reference database to compare future changes in tree phenology.

When leopards are found in human-dominated landscapes, conflicts may arise due to attacks on people or livestock loss or when people retaliate following real and perceived threats. In the plantation landscape of the Valparai plateau, we studied incidents of injury and loss of life of people and livestock over time (15 – 25 y) and carried out questionnaire surveys in 29 plantation colonies and eight tribal villages to study correlates of livestock depredation, people's perception of leopards, and preferred management options for human – leopard interactions. Leopards were implicated in an average of 1.3 (± 0.4 SE) incidents/year (1990 – 2014) involving humans and 3.6 (± 0.8 SE) incidents/year (1999 – 2014) involving livestock, with no statistically significant increasing trend over time. Most incidents of injury or loss of life involved young children or unattended livestock, and occurred between afternoon and night. At the colony level, livestock depredation was positively related to the number of livestock, but decreased with the distance from protected area and number of residents. Half the respondents reported seeing a leopard in a neutral situation, under conditions that resulted in no harm. All tribal and 52% of estate respondents had neutral perceptions of leopards and most (81.9%, n = 161 respondents) indicated changing their own behaviour as a preferred option to manage negative interactions with leopards, rather than capture or removal of leopards. Perception was unrelated to livestock depredation, but tended to be more negative when human attacks had occurred in a colony. A combination of measures including safety precautions for adults and children at night, better livestock herding and cattle-sheds, and building on people's neutral perception and tolerance can mitigate negative interactions and support continued human – leopard coexistence.

Rodents affect the post-dispersal fate of seeds by acting either as on-site seed predators or as secondary dispersers when they scatter-hoard seeds. The tropical forests of north-east India harbour a high diversity of little-studied terrestrial murid and hystricid rodents. We examined the role played by these rodents in determining the seed fates of tropical evergreen tree species in a forest site in north-east India. We selected ten tree species (3 mammal-dispersed and 7 bird-dispersed) that varied in seed size and followed the fates of 10,777 tagged seeds. We used camera traps to determine the identity of rodent visitors, visitation rates and their seed-handling behavior. Seeds of all tree species were handled by at least one rodent taxon. Overall rates of seed removal (44.5%) were much higher than direct on-site seed predation (9.9%), but seed-handling behavior differed between the terrestrial rodent groups: two species of murid rodents removed and cached seeds, and two species of porcupines were on-site seed predators. In addition, a true cricket, Brachytrupes sp., cached seeds of three species underground. We found 309 caches formed by the rodents and the cricket; most were single-seeded (79%) and seeds were moved up to 19 m. Over 40% of seeds were re-cached from primary cache locations, while about 12% germinated in the primary caches. Seed removal rates varied widely amongst tree species, from 3% in Beilschmiedia assamica to 97% in Actinodaphne obovata. Seed predation was observed in nine species. Chisocheton cumingianus (57%) and Prunus ceylanica (25%) had moderate levels of seed predation while the remaining species had less than 10% seed predation. We hypothesized that seed traits that provide information on resource quantity would influence rodent choice of a seed, while traits that determine resource accessibility would influence whether seeds are removed or eaten. Removal rates significantly decreased (p < 0.001) while predation rates increased (p = 0.06) with seed size. Removal rates were significantly lower for soft seeds (p = 0.002), whereas predation rates were significantly higher on soft seeds (p = 0.01). Our results show that murid rodents play a very important role in affecting the seed fates of tropical trees in the Eastern Himalayas. We also found that the different rodent groups differed in their seed handling behavior and responses to changes in seed characteristics.

Understory avian insectivores are especially sensitive to deforestation, although regional differences in how these species respond to human disturbance may be linked to varying land-use histories. South Asia experienced widespread conversion of forest to agriculture in the nineteenth century, providing a comparison to tropical areas deforested more recently. In Sri Lanka and the Western Ghats of India, we compared understory insectivores to other guilds, and to insectivores with different vertical strata preferences, both inside mixed-species flocks and for the whole bird community. Overall species richness did not change across the land-use gradient, although there was substantial turnover in species composition between land-use types. We found that the proportion of species represented by insectivores was ~1.14 times higher in forest compared to agriculture, and the proportion of insectivores represented by understory species was ~1.32 times higher in forests. Mass-abundance relationships were very different when analyzed on mixed-species flocks compared to the total community, perhaps indicating reduced competition in these mutualisms. We show that South Asia fits the worldwide pattern of understory insectivores declining with increased land-use intensity, and conclude that these species can be used globally as indicator and/or umbrella species for conservation across different disturbance time scales.

Leopards use a wide range of habitats from natural forests to plantations in human-dominated landscapes. Within interface areas, understanding leopard ecology and diet can help in conservation management and conflict avoidance. In a fragmented rainforest and plantation landscape in southern India, we examined diet of large carnivores (with a focus on leopards) using scat analysis with DNA-based identification of predator species, and estimated relative abundance of prey species in different land uses through transect surveys. Large carnivores predominantly consumed wild prey species (98.1%) and domestic prey species contributed <2% to overall prey biomass. For leopards, four wild prey species (Indian muntjac, Indian spotted chevrotain, sambar and Indian porcupine) contributed 95.1% of prey biomass, with the rest being minor wild prey species (no livestock in identified scats). Wild prey species occurred across the landscape but varied in relative abundance by land-use type, with forest fragments supporting higher abundance of many species relative to tea and coffee plantations. As large carnivores mainly depend on wild prey and rainforest fragments act as refuges for these mammals within the tea and coffee plantations, it is important to continue to retain or restore these forest fragments.

Conservation biology is increasingly concerned with preserving interactions among species such as mutualisms in landscapes facing anthropogenic change. We investigated how one kind of mutualism, mixed-species bird flocks, influences the way in which birds respond to different habitat types of varying land-use intensity. We use data from a well-replicated, large-scale study in Sri Lanka and the Western Ghats of India, in which flocks were observed inside forest reserves, in ‘buffer zones' of degraded forest or timber plantations, and in areas of intensive agriculture. We find flocks affected the responses of birds in three ways: (i) species with high propensity to flock were more sensitive to land use; (ii) different flock types, dominated by different flock leaders, varied in their sensitivity to land use and because following species have distinct preferences for leaders, this can have a cascading effect on followers' habitat selection; and (iii) those forest-interior species that remain outside of forests were found more inside flocks than would be expected by chance, as they may use flocks more in suboptimal habitat. We conclude that designing policies to protect flocks and their leading species may be an effective way to conserve multiple bird species in mixed forest and agricultural landscapes.

While there is no substitute for undisturbed forest, secondary forests and agroforests are increasingly common in tropical areas and may be critical to conservation plans. We compared the diversity and abundance of birds and the characteristics of mixed-species bird flocks in forests inside protected reserves to "buffer" areas, consisting of degraded forests and non-native timber plantations at reserve boundaries, and to agricultural areas. We monitored a network of 57 transects placed over an altitudinal gradient (90-2180 masl) in Sri Lanka and southern India, collecting 398 complete flock observations and 35,686 observations of birds inside and outside of flocks over two years. Flocks were rarely found in agricultural areas. However, the density of flocks in buffer areas was similar to that in forests, although buffer flocks were smaller in average flock size and differed significantly in composition, as measured by the proportion of species that were classified, from the literature, as forest interior or open-landscape species. While flock composition was distinct between agricultural, buffer and forest areas, the differences in the composition of flocks was not as great as the differences between the overall communities in these different habitats. Considering buffer transects alone, pine plantations retained fewer forest interior species in flocks than did forests, and small areas of agriculture and abandoned agriculture attracted open-landscape species. Though clearly not equivalent to protected forests, degraded forests and agroforests in buffer areas still hold some conservation value, with forest species found particularly in mixed-species flocks in these human-modified habitats. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1Nature Conservation Foundation, 3076/5, 4th Cross, Gokulam Park, Mysore 570 002, Karnataka, India. 2Field Ornithology Group of Sri Lanka, Department of Zoology, University of Colombo, Colombo, Sri Lanka. Current address: Section of Ecology, Behavior and Evolution, Division of Biological Sciences, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla CA 92093, USA. Email: eben.goodale@gmail.com 3Email: swati@ncf-india.org 4Email: trsr@ncf-india.org