A study was conducted in the mudflats of Jeram and Remis Beaches, Selangor, Peninsular Malaysia from November 2013
until July 2014 to determine the effects of disturbance on shorebird and waterbird abundance and foraging behavior. Direct
observation was used in this study. Mann-Whitney test showed no significant difference in abundance of bird in Jeram
and Remis Beaches (t=2.96, p=0.05). A significant difference were detected between the sampling plots in Jeram Beach
(S=16.67, p<0.001) and Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test shows a significant difference between the sampling plots in Remis
Beach (W=78, p=0.003). Spearman’s rank correlation shows significant association between the abundance of bird with
the abundance of humans, dogs and vehicles (p<0.05) in both Jeram and Remis Beaches. Humans contribute to a higher
percentage in disruptions towards the species studied (47.5%), followed by dogs (32.1%) and vehicles (20.4%). Thirtysix
percent of birds stopped feeding and flew away upon disruption, 23% stopped feeding and run away, 22% stopped
feeding but stay alert and 19% continue feeding (habituated). Analysis on the responses of birds toward the disturbance
show significant difference between species (χ2
= 98.77, p<0.05). This study concluded that anthropogenic disturbance
caused a major impact on shorebird and waterbird abundance and influenced their foraging behavior. Response of bird
towards disturbance was varied according to the species and types of disturbance. By understanding how the bird species
response toward disturbance, the conservation efforts can be implemented more effectively in the future.
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.
Cervical intumescence (CI) and lumbosacral intumescence (LI) are bird spinal enlargements having large spinal grey areas in correlation to forelimbs (wings) and hindlimbs (legs). This study compared CI and LI ventral horn motor neurons responsible for limbs innervations for flying and flightless birds. Abstracted spinal cords of six birds from each species (Corvus splendens and Acridotheres javanicus representing flying birds vs. Gallus domesticus and Coturnix japonica representing flightless birds) were processed for neurohistological Nissl’s staining procedure following cardiac perfusion and fixation with 10% formalin solution, and further immersion fixation. Observation and analysis of slides used Olympus BX50 light microscope with the aid of AnalySIS Soft Imaging System software. Large motor neurons with varied shapes located at lamina IX of ventrolateral spinal grey were observed. They were counted at selected levels and ANOVA test was done on the data. The average counts of CI and LI motor neurons in each group were not significantly different, indicating similar importance of motor neurons at CI and LI levels for both bird types. However, analysis of CI:LI motor neuron counts ratio hinted different types of control over the limbs; hence, quantity alone did not fully reflect the function of motor control innervation.
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.