The state forest department has cleared an ambitious study to map the evolutionary changes that have occurred to birds in the Western Ghats ever since the last Ice Age, which peaked about 20,000 years ago.

The study begining October will involve collecting blood and buccal swabs from 17 bird species. A five-member team led by Uma Ramakrishnan, assistant professor at National Centre for Biological Science (Bengaluru) will conduct the study.

“We took Ice Age as the reference period as we wanted to probe how warmer climates have affected avian species over the years,’’ Dr Uma said.

The team will study DNA samples to understand the change. ‘’Each DNA strand tells a unique story. Certain areas of DNA would not have mutated while others might show fast mutation. From this, you can figure out when the changes have happened and its nature. In short, a whole new story on birds can be reconstructed.”

The team will also research species multiplicity. “For example, white-bellied short wings found on either side of the Palakkad Gap were in fact two species,” she said.

She said taking blood samples of birds was a painless process. “We have a standardised capillary process in which a single drop of blood will be taken out from the wing. The bird will not feel a thing.”