Dietary study provides understanding in predator-prey relationships, yet diet of tropical forest birds is poorly understood.
In this study, a non-invasive method, next-generation sequencing (Illumina MiSeq platform) was used to identify prey in
the faecal samples of the Rufous-winged Philentoma (Philentoma pyrhoptera). Dietary samples were collected in lowland
tropical forest of central Peninsular Malaysia. A general invertebrate primer pair was used for the first time to assess
diet of tropical birds. The USEARCH was used to cluster the COI mtDNA sequences into Operational Taxonomic Unit (OTU).
OTU sequences were aligned and queried through the GenBank or Biodiversity of Life Database (BOLD). We identified
26 distinct arthropod taxa from 31 OTUs. Of all OTUs, there was three that could be identified up to species level, 20 to
genus level, three to family level and five could not assigned to any taxa (the BLAST hits were poor). All sequences were
identified to class Insecta belonging to 18 families from four orders, where Lepidoptera representing major insect order
consumed by study bird species. This non-invasive molecular approach provides a practical and rapid technique to
understand of how energy flows across ecosystems. This technique could be very useful to screen for possible particular
pest insects consumed by insectivores (e.g. birds and bats) in crop plantation. A comprehensive arthropod studies and
local reference sequences need to be added to the database to improve the proportion of sequences that can be identified.
Foraging pattern of Chestnut-winged Babbler (Stachyris erythroptera) and Abbott’s Babbler (Malacocincla abbotti) was
studied in Lenggong Valley, Perak from July 2010 until July 2011. The study examines the patterns of foraging height,
foraging substrates and attack manoeuvres of two babbler species (Family: Timaliidae), to explain how these trophically
similar species can coexist in the same habitat; a central question in ecology. Information on the foraging height, foraging
substrate and attack manoeuvres was collected independently for each foraging bird. Principal component analysis and
Pearson’s correlation analysis showed that these two species used similar proportion of foraging height (>0-2 m above
the ground) and foraging substrate (dead leaves), but differed in the use of attack manoeuvres. The Chestnut-winged
babbler used primarily stretching manoeuvre, whereas the Abbott’s babbler used primarily gleaning manoeuvre. This
niche separation allowed these species to coexist in the same area, thus follows the Gause’ Law of competitive exclusion,
that states two species occupying the same niches will not coexist forever.
Despite the increasing numbers of hydrodam worldwide, only a handful of studies evaluated their impacts on biodiversity.
Compared to terrestrial animals, birds were thought to be less affected by inundation process, following impoundment. At
the Hulu Terengganu Hydroelectric Dam in Peninsular Malaysia, our study compared species assemblages and diversity
of birds within the dam area (i.e. the dam reservoir and catchment area) after recent logging and inundation in relation
to a nearby forest logged 30 years ago. Using point count and mist-netting techniques, we recorded a total of 64 species
(Shannon Index (H’) = 3.827) in the dam area and 91 species (H’=3.99) in historically-logged forests. Insectivore species
richness was significantly higher in the historically-logged forests (Mann-Whitney: Z=4.339, N=205, p<0.005). These
results indicated that richness and diversity of bird species assemblages appear to decline following recent inundation
phase. Nevertheless, the forests in the dam area still harbour charismatic species such as eagles (Family: Accipitridae)
and hornbills (Family: Bucerotidae) which suggests that this habitat is relatively important for birds.