Monsoon meteorology and agricultural phenology structure atmospheric transport of aerial biomass across the Indian subcontinent

The movement of organisms through the atmosphere is a fundamental but under-observed ecological process that redistributes biomass, genes, and ecological interactions across continents. Aeroecology has revealed that such movements are strongly determined by synoptic and mesoscale atmospheric dynamics, which jointly determine when, where, and at what altitudes animals initiate, sustain, and terminate flight. However, current understanding is derived largely from temperate climatologies, leaving tropical aeroecology, where atmospheric circulation regimes are fundamentally different, poorly resolved. Here, I synthesize existing literature on radar observations, migration studies, and atmospheric dynamics to examine how monsoon-dominated tropical atmosphere structures aerial movement across the Indian subcontinent at inter-continental (>1000 km) and intra-peninsular (100 – 500 km) scales. Across trophic levels, long-distance migratory movements are jointly organized by synoptic-scale monsoon flow and its seasonal reversal, orographic channeling and uplift along the Himalayan barrier, and spatial constriction at coastal bottlenecks along the western coast of the peninsula. These processes generate a common set of migration corridors for both, birds and insects, including trans- Himalayan, circum-Himalayan, Indo-African, and Indo-East/Southeast Asian pathways. At regional scales, evidence from the limited but critical radar observations indicates that aerial dispersal is tightly coupled to intraseasonal active–break phases of the monsoon, the stability and intermittency of diel boundary-layer transitions (including the strength of nocturnal low-level jets), and – particularly for insect pests – cropping cycles and agricultural phenology. Despite these distinctive dynamics, radar aeroecology in the tropics remains sparse. India’s rapidly expanding weather-radar network, especially its dual-polarization X- and C-Band coverage across the western coast and the western Himalayan arc, provides an exceptional but underutilized platform for strengthening tropical aeroecology. By explicitly integrating monsoon meteorology, ecology, and radar aeroecology, this synthesis provides a framework for advancing a mechanistic, globally representative understanding of tropical aeroecology.