A previously undescribed pollination system involving a monoecious tree species, Artocarpus integer (Moraceae), pollinator gall midges, and fungi is reported from a mixed dipterocarp forest in Sarawak, Borneo. The fungus Choanephora sp. (Choanephoraceae, Mucorales, Zygomycetes) infects male inflorescences of A. integer, and gall midges (Contarinia spp., Cecidomyiinae, Diptera) feed on the fungal mycelia and oviposit on the inflorescence. Their larvae also feed on the mycelia and pupate in the inflorescence. The gall midges are also attracted by female inflorescences lacking mycelia, probably due to a floral fragrance similar to that of male inflorescences. Because of the sticky pollen, dominance of Contarinia spp. in flower visitors, and pollen load observed on Contarinia spp. collected on both male and female inflorescences, Artocarpus integer is thought to be pollinated by the gall midges. Although several pathogenic fungi have been reported to have interactions with pollinators, this is the first report on a pollination mutualism in which a fungus plays an indispensable role. The pollination system described here suggests that we should be more aware of the roles fungi can play in pollinations.
Lowiaceae, a family of the Zingiberales, comprise 11 species in the single genus Orchidantha. Here we present the first report on the pollination of Lowiaceae and describe a new system of dung-beetle pollination from Sarawak, Borneo. Orchidantha inouei has a zygomorphic flower located just above the ground. Observations revealed that the plant is visited frequently and is pollinated by scarabaeid dung beetles, mainly members of the genus Onthophagus. All four species of Onthophagus collected on O. inouei have also been caught using traps baited with dung or carrion in Borneo. Onthophagus was presumably attracted to the dung-like odor of the flower. Pollination of O. inouei is different from other examples of beetle pollination in that its flower provides neither reward nor protected space. Dung beetles are excellent at following a particular dung scent. Orchidantha is the only genus that includes species lacking floral nectar. It is interesting that this deception pollination using dung beetles was found in Zingiberales, in which all known species have mutual and specialized relationships with their long-distance, but costly, pollinators-bees, birds, and bats.
The case histories of two patients healed by animist treatment in the Iban tradition are reviewed by two psychiatrists. Both psychiatrists point to the difficulties in the evaluation of the background of the disease and of the mechanisms of its treatment by people not aware of the cultural and sociological aspects of eastern civilisation. The diagnostic classification of both patients by means of western medicine and the possible treatment of their disease are discussed. The failure of western medicine to understand the psychiatrical aspects of animist religions in the pathogenesis of diseases raises the question whether western medicine will be able to cope with the health problems of Iban (and other animists) sufficiently when their animist tradition will be replaced by western civilisation.
Freshwaters provide valuable habitat and important ecosystem services but are threatened worldwide by habitat loss and degradation. In Southeast Asia, rainforest streams are particularly threatened by logging and conversion to oil palm, but we lack information on the impacts of this on freshwater environmental conditions, and the relative importance of catchment versus riparian-scale disturbance. We studied 16 streams in Sabah, Borneo, including old-growth forest, logged forest, and oil palm sites. We assessed forest quality in riparian zones and across the whole catchment and compared it with stream environmental conditions including water quality, structural complexity, and organic inputs. We found that streams with the highest riparian forest quality were nearly 4 °C cooler, over 20 cm deeper, had over 40% less sand, greater canopy cover, more stored leaf litter, and wider channels than oil palm streams with the lowest riparian forest quality. Other variables were significantly related to catchment-scale forest quality, with streams in the highest quality forest catchments having 40% more bedrock and 20 times more dead wood, along with higher phosphorus, and lower nitrate-N levels compared to streams with the lowest catchment-scale forest quality. Although riparian buffer strips went some way to protecting waterways, they did not maintain fully forest-like stream conditions. In addition, logged forest streams still showed signs of disturbance 10-15 years after selective logging. Our results suggest that maintenance and restoration of buffer strips can help to protect healthy freshwater ecosystems but logging practices and catchment-scale forest management also need to be considered.
AbstractOrganisms living at high elevations generally grow and develop more slowly than those at lower elevations. Slow montane ontogeny is thought to be an evolved adaptation to harsh environments that improves juvenile quality via physiological trade-offs. However, slower montane ontogeny may also reflect proximate influences of harsh weather on parental care and offspring development. We experimentally heated and protected nests from rain to ameliorate harsh montane weather conditions for mountain blackeyes (Chlorocharis emiliae), a montane songbird living at approximately 3,200 m asl in Malaysian Borneo. This experiment was designed to test whether cold and wet montane conditions contribute to parental care and postnatal growth and development rates at high elevations. We found that parents increased provisioning and reduced time spent warming offspring, which grew faster and departed the nest earlier compared with offspring from unmanipulated nests. Earlier departure reduces time-dependent predation risk, benefitting parents and offspring. These plastic responses highlight the importance of proximate weather contributions to broad patterns of montane ontogeny and parental care.
Following its capture in March 2014, an adult female Sumatran rhinoceros frequently showed profuse vaginal bleeding. An ultrasonography suggested the presence of multiple reproductive lesions, including two uterine masses which were suspected to be leiomyomas. Soon after, an open pyometra was confirmed. Later in November 2019, the patient died and necropsy confirmed the presence of two uterine masses; one was located at the cervico-uterine junction and another in the uterine body, with pyometra, and cystic endometrial hyerplasia. Based on histological, special stains, and immunohistochemical examination, it was shown that one of the masses was composed of large, ovoid and polyhedral neoplastic mesenchymal cells with eosinophilic cytoplasm and a few binucleated cells surrounded by collagen fibres. It was tested positive for SMA and vimentin, while negative for desmin, cytokeratin AE1/AE3, EMA, CD34, and S100. The other mass was composed of mesenchymal cells undergoing myxoid degeneration as evidenced by the presence of glycosaminoglycan-rich matrix. It was tested positive for SMA, vimentin, partially positive for desmin, and negative for the other markers. With the aid of human medical nomenclature, these masses were diagnosed as epithelioid leiomyoma and myxoid leiomyoma, respectively. This report provides a clinical presentation, and histologic descriptions of the two variants of leiomyomas that have not been reported in veterinary medicine.
Haemaphysalis (Garnhamphysalis) mjoebergi Warburton was reported from four male specimens from Sarawak, Borneo. We redescribe herein the male, from three specimens from Sarawak and 24 from Lampung District, Sumatra, and describe the female from 24 specimens from Lampung. Male structural variation in the dental formula and development of the coxa IV spur and segments of legs III and IV is unusual or unique in the genus Haemaphysalis. "Atypical" males might easily be misidentified. This species provides an ideal model for experimental study of population genetics and evolutionary processes and of biological factors influencing body size and structural variation in the genus Haemaphysalis. The sambar deer, Cervus unicolor brookei Hose (Sarawak) and C. unicolor equinus Cuvier (Sumatra), appears to be the chief host in humid, marshy, lowland forests and secondary growth. Single collections were from a human and a domestic cow. The dynamics and vector potential of this tick should be investigated in environments being exploited for human settlement and cattle breeding.
The Malaysian state of Sabah on the Island of Borneo has recently emerged as a global hotspot of nickel hyperaccumulator plants. This study focuses on the tissue-level distribution of nickel and other physiologically relevant elements in hyperaccumulator plants with distinct phylogenetical affinities. The roots, old stems, young stems and leaves of Flacourtia kinabaluensis (Salicaceae), Actephila alanbakeri (Phyllanthaceae), Psychotria sarmentosa (Rubiaceae) and young stems and leaves of Glochidion brunneum (Phyllanthaceae) were studied using nuclear microprobe (micro-PIXE and micro-BS) analysis. The tissue-level distribution of nickel found in these species has the same overall pattern as in most other hyperaccumulator plants studied previously, with substantial enrichment in the epidermal cells and in the phloem. This study also revealed enrichment of potassium in the spongy and palisade mesophyll of the studied species. Calcium, chlorine, manganese and cobalt were found to be enriched in the phloem and also concentrated in the epidermis and cortex of the studied species. Although hyperaccumulation ostensibly evolved numerous times independently, the basic mechanisms inferred from tissue elemental localization are convergent in these tropical woody species from Borneo Island.
Both community composition changes due to species redistribution and within-species size shifts may alter body-size structures under climate warming. Here we assess the relative contribution of these processes in community-level body-size changes in tropical moth assemblages that moved uphill during a period of warming. Based on resurvey data for seven assemblages of geometrid moths (>8000 individuals) on Mt. Kinabalu, Borneo, in 1965 and 2007, we show significant wing-length reduction (mean shrinkage of 1.3% per species). Range shifts explain most size restructuring, due to uphill shifts of relatively small species, especially at high elevations. Overall, mean forewing length shrank by ca. 5%, much of which is accounted for by species range boundary shifts (3.9%), followed by within-boundary distribution changes (0.5%), and within-species size shrinkage (0.6%). We conclude that the effects of range shifting predominate, but considering species physiological responses is also important for understanding community size reorganization under climate warming.
DNA barcoding is a fast and reliable tool to assess and monitor biodiversity and, via community phylogenetics, to investigate ecological and evolutionary processes that may be responsible for the community structure of forests. In this study, DNA barcodes for the two widely used plastid coding regions rbcL and matK are used to contribute to identification of morphologically undetermined individuals, as well as to investigate phylogenetic structure of tree communities in 70 subplots (10 × 10m) of a 25-ha forest-dynamics plot in Brunei (Borneo, Southeast Asia). The combined matrix (rbcL + matK) comprised 555 haplotypes (from ≥154 genera, 68 families and 25 orders sensu APG, Angiosperm Phylogeny Group, 2016), making a substantial contribution to tree barcode sequences from Southeast Asia. Barcode sequences were used to reconstruct phylogenetic relationships using maximum likelihood, both with and without constraining the topology of taxonomic orders to match that proposed by the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group. A third phylogenetic tree was reconstructed using the program Phylomatic to investigate the influence of phylogenetic resolution on results. Detection of non-random patterns of community assembly was determined by net relatedness index (NRI) and nearest taxon index (NTI). In most cases, community assembly was either random or phylogenetically clustered, which likely indicates the importance to community structure of habitat filtering based on phylogenetically correlated traits in determining community structure. Different phylogenetic trees gave similar overall results, but the Phylomatic tree produced greater variation across plots for NRI and NTI values, presumably due to noise introduced by using an unresolved phylogenetic tree. Our results suggest that using a DNA barcode tree has benefits over the traditionally used Phylomatic approach by increasing precision and accuracy and allowing the incorporation of taxonomically unidentified individuals into analyses.
Ants are diverse and abundant, especially in tropical ecosystems. They are often cited as the agents of key ecological processes, but their precise contributions compared with other organisms have rarely been quantified. Through the removal of food resources from the forest floor and subsequent transport to nests, ants play an important role in the redistribution of nutrients in rainforests. This is an essential ecosystem process and a key energetic link between higher trophic levels, decomposers and primary producers. We used the removal of carbohydrate, protein and seed baits as a proxy to quantify the contribution that ants, other invertebrates and vertebrates make to the redistribution of nutrients around the forest floor, and determined to what extent there is functional redundancy across ants, other invertebrate and vertebrate groups. Using a large-scale, field-based manipulation experiment, we suppressed ants from c. 1 ha plots in a lowland tropical rainforest in Sabah, Malaysia. Using a combination of treatment and control plots, and cages to exclude vertebrates, we made food resources available to: (i) the whole foraging community, (ii) only invertebrates and (iii) only non-ant invertebrates. This allowed us to partition bait removal into that taken by vertebrates, non-ant invertebrates and ants. Additionally, we examined how the non-ant invertebrate community responded to ant exclusion. When the whole foraging community had access to food resources, we found that ants were responsible for 52% of total bait removal whilst vertebrates and non-ant invertebrates removed the remaining 48%. Where vertebrates were excluded, ants carried out 61% of invertebrate-mediated bait removal, with all other invertebrates removing the remaining 39%. Vertebrates were responsible for just 24% of bait removal and invertebrates (including ants) collectively removed the remaining 76%. There was no compensation in bait removal rate when ants and vertebrates were excluded, indicating low functional redundancy between these groups. This study is the first to quantify the contribution of ants to the removal of food resources from rainforest floors and thus nutrient redistribution. We demonstrate that ants are functionally unique in this role because no other organisms compensated to maintain bait removal rate in their absence. As such, we strengthen a growing body of evidence establishing ants as ecosystem engineers, and provide new insights into the role of ants in maintaining key ecosystem processes. In this way, we further our basic understanding of the functioning of tropical rainforest ecosystems.
Lemuricola (Protenterobius) nycticebi is the only pinworm species known to infect strepsirrhine primates outside Africa, and the only pinworm species yet described in slow lorises. Here, we provided a detailed morphological comparison of female and male worms, and a first description of fourth-stage larvae collected from free-living slow lorises (Nycticebus menagensis) in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo. Using mitochondrial and nuclear markers, we also reconstructed the species' phylogenetic relationship with other pinworms infecting primates. Both morphological and molecular results indicated a distinct association between L. (P.) nycticebi and its host. However, while taxonomy identified this species as a member of the Lemuricola clade and grouped pinworms infecting lemurs and slow lorises together, phylogenetic reconstruction split them, placing L. (P.) nycticebi within the Enterobius clade. Our results suggest that L. (P.) nycticebi may represent a different taxon altogether, and that it is more closely related to pinworm species infecting Old World primates outside Madagascar. Pongobius pongoi (Foitová et al., 2008) n. comb. is also proposed.
For reefs in South East Asia the synergistic effects of rapid land development, insufficient environmental policies and a lack of enforcement has led to poor water quality and compromised coral health from increased sediment and pollution. Those inshore turbid coral reefs, subject to significant sediment inputs, may also inherit some resilience to the effects of thermal stress and coral bleaching. We studied the inshore turbid reefs near Miri, in northwest Borneo through a comprehensive assessment of coral cover and health in addition to quantifying sediment-related parameters. Although Miri's Reefs had comparatively low coral species diversity, dominated by massive and encrusting forms of Diploastrea, Porites, Montipora, Favites, Dipsastrea and Pachyseris, they were characterized by a healthy cover ranging from 22 to 39%. We found a strong inshore to offshore gradient in hard coral cover, diversity and community composition as a direct result of spatial differences in sediment at distances <10 km. As well as distance to shore, we included other environmental variables like reef depth and sediment trap accumulation and particle size that explained 62.5% of variation in benthic composition among sites. Miri's reefs showed little evidence of coral disease and relatively low prevalence of compromised health signs including bleaching (6.7%), bioerosion (6.6%), pigmentation response (2.2%), scars (1.1%) and excessive mucus production (0.5%). Tagged colonies of Diploastrea and Pachyseris suffering partial bleaching in 2016 had fully (90-100%) recovered the following year. There were, however, seasonal differences in bioerosion rates, which increased five-fold after the 2017 wet season. Differences in measures of coral physiology, like that of symbiont density and chlorophyll a for Montipora, Pachyseris and Acropora, were not detected among sites. We conclude that Miri's reefs may be in a temporally stable state given minimal recently dead coral and a limited decline in coral cover over the last two decades. This study provides further evidence that turbid coral reefs exposed to seasonally elevated sediment loads can exhibit relatively high coral cover and be resilient to disease and elevated sea surface temperatures.
The upper catchment region of the Baram River in Sarawak (Malaysian Borneo) is undergoing severe land degradation due to soil erosion. Heavy rainfall with high erosive power has led to a number of soil erosion hotspots. The goal of the present study is to generate an understanding about the spatial characteristics of seasonal and annual rainfall erosivity (R), which not only control sediment delivery from the region but also determine the quantity of material potentially eroded. Mean annual rainfall and rainfall erosivity range from 2170 to 5167 mm and 1632 to 5319 MJ mm ha-1 h-1 year-1, respectively. Seasonal rainfall and rainfall erosivity range from 848 to 1872 mm and 558 to 1883 MJ mm ha-1 h-1 year-1 for the southwest (SW) monsoon, 902 to 2200 mm and 664 to 2793 MJ mm ha-1h-1year-1 for the northeast (NE) monsoon and 400 to 933 mm and 331 to 1075 MJ mm ha-1 h-1 year-1 during the inter-monsoon (IM) period. Linear regression, Spearman's Rho and Mann Kendall tests were applied. Considering the regional mean rainfall erosivity in the study area, all the methods show an overall non-significant decreasing trend (- 9.34, - 0.25 and - 0.30 MJ mm ha-1 h-1 year-1, respectively for linear regression, Spearman's Rho and Mann Kendall tests). However, during SW monsoon and IM periods, rainfall erosivity showed a non-significant decreasing trend (- 25.45, - 0.52, - 0.40, and - 8.86, - 1.07, - 0.77 MJ mm ha-1 h-1 year-1, respectively) whereas in NE, monsoon season erosivity showed a non-significant increasing trend (14.90, 1.59 and 1.60 MJ mm ha-1 h-1 year-1, respectively). The mean erosivity density ranges from 0.77 to 1.38 MJ ha-1 h-1 year-1 and shows decreasing trend. Spatial distribution pattern of erosivity density indicates significantly higher occurrence of erosive rainfall in the lower elevation portion of the study area. The spatial pattern of mean rainfall erosivity trends (linear, Spearman's Rho and Mann Kendall) suggests that the study area can be divided into two zones with increasing rainfall erosivity trends in the northern zone and decreasing trends in the southern zone. These results can be used to plan conservation measures to reduce sediment delivery from localized soil erosion hotspots.
Tarsier is an endangered nocturnal primate in the family Tarsiidae and is an endemic to Sundaic islands of Philippine (Carlito syrichta), Sulawesi (Tarsius tarsier-complex) and Borneo (Cephalopachus bancanus). Recent records indicated that most molecular studies were done on the Eastern Tarsier and little information for the other group of tarsiers. Here, we present a partial cytochrome b data set of C. bancanus in Sarawak, Malaysian Borneo. Standard mist nets were deployed at strategic locations in various habitat types. A total of 18 individuals were caught, measured and weighed. Approximately, 2 × 2 mm of tissue samples were taken and preserved in molecular grade alcohol. Out of 18, only 11 samples were screened with partial mtDNA (cytochrome b) and the DNA sequences were registered in the GenBank (accession numbers: KY794797-KY794807). Phylogenetic trees were constructed with 20 additional mtDNA sequences downloaded from GenBank. The data are valuable for the management authorities to regulate the type of management units for the metapopulation to sustain population genetics integrity of tarsiers in the range countries across the Sunda Shelf.
Termites perform key ecological functions in tropical ecosystems, are strongly affected by variation in rainfall, and respond negatively to habitat disturbance. However, it is not known how the projected increase in frequency and severity of droughts in tropical rainforests will alter termite communities and the maintenance of ecosystem processes. Using a large-scale termite suppression experiment, we found that termite activity and abundance increased during drought in a Bornean forest. This increase resulted in accelerated litter decomposition, elevated soil moisture, greater soil nutrient heterogeneity, and higher seedling survival rates during the extreme El Niño drought of 2015-2016. Our work shows how an invertebrate group enhances ecosystem resistance to drought, providing evidence that the dual stressors of climate change and anthropogenic shifts in biotic communities will have various negative consequences for the maintenance of rainforest ecosystems.
Kratom is a plant material exhibiting both analgesic and stimulant effects and is also forensically relevant since it is abused as a "legal high." It is regulated in several countries but not scheduled in the United States at the federal level. This study used inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) to measure the concentrations of 13 elements in 19 kratom samples obtained from an online distributor selling kratom, from Borneo, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam, for the purpose of using the elements to discriminate among purported country of origin, "suborigin," and strain. Analysis of variance revealed statistical differences in concentrations of elements from each group, while discriminant function analysis (using leave-one-out classification) successfully classified kratom samples by their purported country of origin (100%), "suborigin," (100%), and strain (86%). Our method illustrates the possibility of utilizing ICP-MS for determination of commercially available kratom samples by purported origin, "subororign," or by product line.
Unsustainable hunting is emptying forests of large animals around the world, but current understanding of how human foraging spreads across landscapes has been stymied by data deficiencies and cryptic hunter behaviour. Unlike other global threats to biodiversity like deforestation, climate change and overfishing, maps of wild meat hunters' movements-often based on forest accessibility-typically cover small scales and are rarely validated with real-world observations. Using camera trapping data from rainforests across Malaysian Borneo, we show that while hunter movements are strongly correlated with the accessibility of different parts of the landscape, accessibility measures are most informative when they integrate fine-scale habitat features like topography and land cover. Measures of accessibility naive to fine-scale habitat complexity, like distance to the nearest road or settlement, generate poor approximations of hunters' movements. In comparison, accessibility as measured by high-resolution movement models based on circuit theory provides vastly better reflections of real-world foraging movements. Our results highlight that simple models incorporating fine-scale landscape heterogeneity can be powerful tools for understanding and predicting widespread threats to biodiversity.