Meetings of the Biodiversity & Ecology Journal Club Department of Biological Sciences, The National University of Singapore Featuring seminar announcements from Ecotax

Wednesday, 12 October 2005: "A rapid assessment of Kumbira Forest in the Angolan Escarpment"

Category : bejc

by Cagan H. Sekercioglu
Center for Conservation Biology
Department of Biological Sciences
Stanford University
Stanford, California, USA

Wednesday, 12th October 2005: 3.00pm - 4.00pm
DBS Conference Room
Blk S3, Level 5, Department of Biological Sciences
The National University of Singapore
Science Drive 4

Visitors may park at Carpark 10

View the map

Host: Navjot S. Sodhi

About the Talk
Angola is one of the 19 Endemic Bird Areas in Africa, and yet is one of the least known countries for birds on the continent, with most of the information on bird distribution based on data collected before 1975. An ornithological expedition to Kumbira Forest, Gabela was undertaken in January 2004 to investigate its bird community. The rapid assessment indicates that this forest still supports majority of the endemic and threatened species, including the Gabela Akalat, which was found to be rather common in modified Òcoffee forestÓ understory. Further research may show that other globally threatened species are more common than presumed.Ê It is hoped that the ornithological importance of Kumbira Forest will lead to detailed studies, community-based ecotourism, and official protection.

About the Speaker
Cagan Sekercioglu is a Turkish ecologist, conservation biologist, ornithologist, and nature photographer doing his postdoctoral research at Stanford University Center for Conservation Biology. His research focuses on the causes and consequences of bird extinctions around the world, with work in areas such as Costa Rica and Uganda.Ê He is investigating the ecological factors behind extinction-proneness, the factors behind the survival of some tropical forest bird species in human-dominated landscapes and the consequences of avian extinctions on bird-mediated ecosystem processes and services. In addition to his empirical research, he is interested in how ecotourism, especially birdwatching, can contribute to community-based conservation in the developing world and improving the role of the private sector in the conservation of biodiversity.

ALL ARE WELCOME!

Posted at 4:55PM SGT | permalink | , .

Monday, 19 September 2005: "Structure, dynamics, and biodiversity of secondary forest vegetation in wet tropical forests of Costa Rica"

Category : bejc

by Robin L. Chazdon
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
University of Connecticut
Storrs, Connecticut, USA

Monday, 19th September 2005: 3.00pm - 4.00pm
DBS Conference Room
Blk S3, Level 5, Department of Biological Sciences
The National University of Singapore
Science Drive 4

Visitors may park at Carpark 10

View the map

Host: Navjot S. Sodhi

About the Talk
In many tropical areas, secondary forests are increasing in areas while old-growth forests diminish. Detailed studies of tree and seedling dynamics in four young second-growth forests over eight years have revealed large changes in population sizes with conservative change in species richness and species composition. Successional changes in tree density, size distribution, and basal area are driven by high mortality of shade-intolerant species, recruitment of shade-tolerant species and growth forms, and decreasing diameter growth rates.

About the Speaker
Robin Chazdon is a professor at the University of Conneticut whose interests include the ecophysiology and conservation of tropical forests. She has worked in Costa Rica for nearly 30 years, studying the forests at the La Selva field station. Currently her research focuses on the dynamics of secondary forests, with a view to their regrowth and restoration. She has served on editorial boards of several journals and is currently the Managing Editor of BIOTROPICA, the Journal of Tropical Biology and Conservation. She has published over 50 scientific peer-reviewed papers and edited two books. She was recognized for her work in 2003, when she received the PresidentÕs Medal from the British Ecological Society, awarded for "high achievement in the field of ecology".

ALL ARE WELCOME!

Posted at 6:16PM SGT | permalink | , .

Tuesday, 23 August 2005: "Activities at MRCRC of Importance to Faunal Diversity and Fishery Resources"

Category : bejc

by Quddusi B. Kazmi
Marine Reference Collection & Resource Centre
University of Karachi, Pakistan

Tuesday, 23rd August 2005: 4.00pm - 5.00pm
DBS Conference Room
Blk S3, Level 5, Department of Biological Sciences
The National University of Singapore
Science Drive 4

Visitors may park at Carpark 10

View the map

Host: Darren Yeo

About the Talk
One of the main objectives of the Marine Reference Collection and Resource Centre (MRCRC) University of Karachi since its establishment in 1968 is to study the marine fauna of Pakistan. It was later that other studies like behaviour, larval development, Artemia culture and unconventional fishery resources were taken up. The projects and programs so far undertaken by MRC have clearly shown that there is a large unexploited potential for several faunal groups and different studies. An overview of these research efforts in biodiversity and other important fields are discussed.

About the Speaker
Dr. Kazmi is the Director of the Marine Reference Collection and Resource Centre, in Karachi, Pakistan. Her research interests cover a broad spectrum and include various faunistic studies of marine animal diversity of Pakistan. In the course of her research, she has published more than 10 books and 80 scientific papers; and presented more than 50 conference papers. In recognition for her outstanding scientific contributions in Pakistan, Dr. Kazmi has received several awards, including the Gold Medal for best scientist of the year in Biology by the Scientific and Cultural Society of Pakistan; the Best Paper Award by the Pakistan Society for Conservation of Wildlife; and the Zoologist of the Year Award from the Zoological Society of Pakistan.

ALL ARE WELCOME!

Posted at 10:31PM SGT | permalink | , .

Wednesday, 20 July 2005: "Underwater coral nurseries and concepts for reef restorations"

Category : bejc

by Lucia Bongiorni
Department of Marine Science
Polytechnic University of Marche
Ancona, Italy

Wednesday, 20th July 2005: 4.00pm - 5.00pm
DBS Conference Room
Blk S3, Level 5, Department of Biological Sciences
The National University of Singapore
Science Drive 4

Visitors may park at Carpark 10

View the map

Host: Jani Thuaibah

Abstract
Coral reefs are among the most productive and complex ecosystems on earth. They play an essential role in sustaining life in the sea and serve as a source of food and protection for human communities. However the growing human and environmental assaults increase rates of reef degradation. The loss of biological and economic services from degraded reefs continually emphasizes the need for maintaining the ecosystem, and where degraded, to restore it. Although reef protection allowing natural recovery remain the first management option, large areas of degraded reefs make it unavoidable to ignore remediation and restoration action. However, viable approaches and technologies are in relatively early stages of development, and in most cases are currently difficult to implement on large spatial scales. In this talk I will introduce some of the concepts and rationales for affording restoration effort and compare some of the existing restoration techniques like coral and fragments transplantation, enhancement of recruitment, corals spats, and electrochemical calcification. A particular emphasis will be put in a two-step restoration strategy involving gardening of small coral fragments (nubbins) in low profile nurseries and their successive transfer to the degraded reef.

About the Speaker
Lucia Bongiorni is currently in NUS as part of a project sponsored by EU (INCO-DEV) that was finalized to develop scientific partnership between EU countries and developing countries. The project aims to restore Indo-Pacific coral reefs using the concept of a two-step restoration measure that is called "gardening of denuded reef areas". In Singapore Lucia will carry out several experiments on the mariculture of nubbins (small coral fragments) in situ and ex situ nurseries.

In Lucia's own words: "I got my Master's degree in Pisa (my home town) working on the recruitment of Mediterranean red coral. However my PhD focused on the ecology of a group of fungoid protists (the thraustochytrids); since then I went on working on two main subjects, marine microbial ecology and corals, hoping one day to join them together! After my PhD I moved to India and Israel for post docs. In the Red Sea I mainly worked on the impact of fish cages on reproduction and growth of scleractinian corals. At present I'm scientist on contract at the Department of Marine Science of the Polytechnic University of Marche (Italy)."

ALL ARE WELCOME!

Posted at 1:08PM SGT | permalink | , .

15 June 2005: "History, ecology and the state of the world's oceans"

Category : bejc

"History, ecology and the state of the world's oceans"

By Prof. Terry Hughes, FAA
Federation Fellow (2002-2007)
Scientific Director, Centre for Coral Reef Biodiversity
School of Marine Biology
James Cook University, Townsville, Australia

Wednesday, 15th June 2005

6.30pm - Refreshments & "Marine Life in Singapore" exhibition by the Blue Water Volunteers
7.00pm - 8.00pm: Seminar

Organised by the Raffles Museum of Biodiversity Research, NUS & James Cook University.

Lecture Theatre 25
Faculty of Science
The National University of Singapore
Science Drive 2

To get here, take SBS Bus 95 from Buona Vista MRT.
Drivers may park at Carpark 10.
View the map for directions.

Host: Prof Chou Loke Ming

About the talk
Studies of marine biology in the past few years have focused on historical trajectories of change, using information from fossils (before there were any people), archeological middens, historical records, and modern fisheries and ecological data. This longer-term perspective illustrates that our exploitation of the sea has been very different from the land. On land, people have replaced wild species like buffalo with domestic ones like cattle and sheep, and rebuilt the structure of ecosystems. In the sea, we have made important species virtually extinct, and we have not replaced them.

Knowledge of history changes our perspective in several ways: It tells us that losses of large animals are huge relative to the size of current stocks, and that recent symptoms of ecological decline may have deep historical roots. History also tells us what marine environments could be like again, and can guide the restoration of damaged ecosystems.

About the speaker
Professor Terry Hughes is the world's most prominent coral reef biologist, and is ranked number one globally by Science Citation Index among the top twenty scientists in coral reef science. He was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science in 2001 for his contribution to the world's knowledge of reefs. He is currently the Scientific Director of the Centre for Coral Reef Biodiversity at James Cook University in Queensland, Australia. He is currently working on an investigation of the biogeography of reef-building corals throughout the Pacific Ocean, and the impacts of climate change on coral reefs. As part of this ongoing work, he has led research teams to Japan, Samoa, French Polynesia, The Solomon Islands, PNG, and Indonesia in the past 3 years. He has published over 60 scientific articles, including a dozen papers in Science and Nature.

Professor Hughes's work has informed governments, international environmental organizations, reef-associated industry and the general public on how to care for and maintain tropical marine environments. Coral reefs are critically important for fisheries and tourism, and for the income they provide to maritime tropical and subtropical nations. Yet the diversity, frequency and scale of human impacts on coral reefs are increasing to the extent that reefs are threatened globally: an estimated 30% of coral reefs are already severely damaged, and close to 60% may be lost by 2030. The main causes of reef degradation are over-fishing, pollution, and climate change.

Professor Hughes and colleagues have investigated the interaction between over-fishing and the ability of coral reefs to absorb impacts due to coral bleaching, an increasingly prevalent impact of climate change. By experimentally excluding fishes to simulate over-fishing, they have shown that fish play a critical role in maintaining healthy ecosystems, and preventing collapse of reefs. Recent experiments show that no-take (no-fishing) areas are an effective tool for managing the resilience of coral reefs: they protect fish stocks, enhance fisheries in surrounding areas, and sustain the vital contribution that fish make to maintaining biodiversity.

Links

• Center for Coral Reef Biodiversity, James Cook University, Australia.
• "Battle To Save Great Barrier Reef." CBS News, 10th March 2005.
• "Global Coral Reefs in Crisis." JCU Press release, 24 June 2004.

  Excerpt - 'A major international review of reef health by an international team of experts led by David Bellwood and Terry Hughes, published in Nature on 24 Jun 2004, describes a crisis, with most coral reefs worldwide in decline and a piecemeal approach to their management, and call for a proactive and global response to turn the tide.

  Reef research published over a forty-year period was reviewed and the authors demonstrated that the increasing instability of coral reef ecosystems before their collapse has often gone unrecognised, even on relatively well studied reefs.

  The authors argue that concentrating too much on particular reefs with large numbers of species ('biodiversity hotspots'), may detract from improving the management of the vast majority of reefs affected by people-the reefs with fewer species overall tend to be more vulnerable.

  'No Take Areas,' in particular, need to be larger, and managed to reduce the migration of non-desirable and pest species.

  The nature of reef research will also have to change to take into account larger scale issues and to compensate for a new generation of researchers and reef managers, especially in the Caribbean, who may never have seen an undamaged reef ecosystem.'

Posted at 1:44PM SGT | permalink | , .

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