Space use and activity patterns by 3 species of small mammals, namely, Tupaia glis, Callosciurus notatus and e. nigrovitatus were determined. The home range size of T. glis ranged from 9,544 to 73,470m2, C. notatus from 6,512 to 16,150m2 and C. nigrovitatus 10,970m2. There was no overlap in the ranges between individuals of the same species and sex but the ranges of different species overlapped. There was no significant difference in the mean daily distance moved among the studied individuals. All individuals showed a bimodal type of activity pattern.
Penggunaan habitat dan corak aktiviti 3 spesies mamalia kecil, Tupaia glis, CalJosciurus notatus dan C. nigrovitatus telah ditentukan. Saiz banjaran kediaman T. glis adalah antara 9,544 hingga 73,470m2, C. notatus daripada 6,512 hingga 16,150m2 dan C. nigrovitatus 10,970m2. Pertindihan banjaran tidak wujud antara spesies atau jantina yang sama. Walau bagaimanapun, berlaku pertindihan banjaran antara spesies yang berbeza. Tiada perbezaan bererti pada purata jarak yang dilalui setiap hari antara individu-individu yang dikaji. Semua individu yang dikaji menunjukan corak aktiviti jenis bimodal.
Cynopterus brachyotis, a fruit, leaf and nectar eating bat is a common frugivorous bat in Southeast Asia. In the present study, changes in the reproductive hormones of these bats were measured. Bats were captured and blood samples were taken monthly for seven months (January to July 1997) in the surrounding areas of Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) campus in Bangi. The concentration of the reproductive hormones in the blood, such as testosterone (male) and progesterone (female) were measured using ELISA. The results showed that body weight and concentration of reproductive hormones was correlated with the monthly rainfall. Abundance of food during the rainy season was believed to be the important factor in influencing body weight gain and increase in reproductive hormone synthesis.
Cynopterus brachyotis merupakan kelawar frugivor pemakan buah-buahan, daun dan nektar yang lazim di Asia Tenggara. Matlamat penyelidikan ini ialah untuk menentukan aras hormon yang dirembeskan oleh gonad kelawar frugivor ini, Kelawar-kelawar ini telah ditangkap dan diambil sampel darah pada setiap bulan selama tujuh bulan (Januari hingga Julai 1997) di sekitar kampus Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) di Bangi. Aras hormon pembiakan, iaitu testosteron pada kelawar jantan dan progesteron pada betina ditentukan dengan menggunakan kaedah ELISA. Hasil kajian menunjukkan bahawa berat badan dan aras hormon pembiakan berkait rapat dengan jumlah taburan hujan bulanan. Kelimpahan sumber makanan pada masa taburan hujan yang tinggi dipercayai merangsang pertambahan berat badan dan sintesis hormon pembiakan pada kelawar ini.
Intensive land expansion of commercial oil palm agricultural lands results in reducing the size of peat swamp forests, particularly in Southeast Asia. The effect of this land conversion on macrofungal biodiversity is, however, understudied. We quantified macrofungal biodiversity by identifying mushroom sporocarps throughout four different habitats; logged peat swamp forest, large-scale oil palm plantation, monoculture, and polyculture smallholdings. We recorded a total of 757 clusters of macrofungi belonging to 127 morphospecies and found that substrates for growing macrofungi were abundant in peat swamp forest; hence, morphospecies richness and macrofungal clusters were significantly greater in logged peat swamp forest than converted oil palm agriculture lands. Environmental factors that influence macrofungi in logged peat swamp forests such as air temperature, humidity, wind speed, soil pH, and soil moisture were different from those in oil palm plantations and smallholdings. We conclude that peat swamp forests are irreplaceable with respect to macrofungal biodiversity. They host much greater macrofungal biodiversity than any of the oil palm agricultural lands. It is imperative that further expansion of oil palm plantation into remaining peat swamp forests should be prohibited in palm oil producing countries. These results imply that macrofungal distribution reflects changes in microclimate between habitats and reduced macrofungal biodiversity may adversely affect decomposition in human-modified landscapes.
The extent to which response to environmental change is mediated by species-specific ecology is an important aspect of the population histories of tropical taxa. During the Pleistocene glacial cycles and associated sea level fluctuations, the Sunda region in Southeast Asia experienced concurrent changes in landmass area and the ratio of forest to open habitat, providing an ideal setting to test the expectation that habitat associations played an important role in determining species' response to the opportunity for geographic expansion. We used mitochondrial control region sequences and six microsatellite loci to compare the phylogeographic structure and demographic histories of four broadly sympatric species of Old World fruit bats in the genus, Cynopterus. Two forest-associated species and two open-habitat generalists were sampled along a latitudinal transect in Singapore, peninsular Malaysia, and southern Thailand. Contrary to expectations based on habitat associations, the geographic scale of population structure was not concordant across ecologically similar species. We found evidence for long and relatively stable demographic history in one forest and one open-habitat species, and inferred non-coincident demographic expansions in the second forest and open-habitat species. Thus, while these results indicate that Pleistocene climate change did not have a single effect on population structure across species, a correlation between habitat association and response to environmental change was supported in only two of four species. We conclude that interactions between multiple factors, including historical and contemporary environmental change, species-specific ecology and interspecific interactions, have shaped the recent evolutionary histories of Cynopterus fruit bats in Southeast Asia.
Taxonomic relationships within the Old World fruit bat genus, Cynopterus, have been equivocal for the better part of a century. While nomenclature has been revised multiple times on the basis of phenotypic characters, evolutionary relationships among taxa representing the entire geographic range of the genus have not been determined. We used mitochondrial DNA sequence data to infer phylogenetic relationships among the three most broadly distributed members of the genus: C. brachyotis, C. horsfieldi, and C. sphinx, and to assess whether C. brachyotis represents a single widespread species, or a complex of distinct lineages. Results clearly indicate that C. brachyotis is a complex of lineages. C. sphinx and C. horsfieldi haplotypes formed monophyletic groups nested within the C. brachyotis species complex. We identified six divergent mitochondrial lineages that are currently referred to C. brachyotis. Lineages from India, Myanmar, Sulawesi, and the Philippines are geographically well-defined, while in Malaysia two lineages, designated Sunda and Forest, are broadly sympatric and may be ecologically distinct. Demographic analyses of the Sunda and Forest lineages suggest strikingly different population histories, including a recent and rapid range expansion in the Sunda lineage, possibly associated with changes in sea levels during the Pleistocene. The resolution of the taxonomic issues raised in this study awaits combined analysis of morphometric characters and molecular data. However, since both the Indian and Malaysian Forest C. brachyotis lineages are apparently ecologically restricted to increasingly fragmented forest habitat, we suggest that reevaluation of the conservation status of populations in these regions should be an immediate goal.
Oil palm (Elaeis guineensis) agriculture is rapidly expanding and requires large areas of land in the tropics to meet the global demand for palm oil products. Land cover conversion of peat swamp forest to oil palm (large- and small-scale oil palm production) is likely to have negative impacts on microhabitat conditions. This study assessed the impact of peat swamp forest conversion to oil palm plantation on microclimate conditions and soil characteristics. The measurement of microclimate (air temperature, wind speed, light intensity and relative humidity) and soil characteristics (soil surface temperature, soil pH, soil moisture, and ground cover vegetation temperature) were compared at a peat swamp forest, smallholdings and a large-scale plantation. Results showed that the peat swamp forest was 1.5-2.3 °C cooler with significantly greater relative humidity, lower light intensities and wind speed compared to the smallholdings and large-scale plantations. Soil characteristics were also significantly different between the peat swamp forest and both types of oil palm plantations with lower soil pH, soil and ground cover vegetation surface temperatures and greater soil moisture in the peat swamp forest. These results suggest that peat swamp forests have greater ecosystem benefits compared to oil palm plantations with smallholdings agricultural approach as a promising management practice to improve microhabitat conditions. Our findings also justify the conservation of remaining peat swamp forest as it provides a refuge from harsh microclimatic conditions that characterize large plantations and smallholdings.
The Southeast Asian species of Hypsugo are rare bats, except for H. cadornae and H. pulveratus, which are distributed throughout the Indomalayan region. Hypsugo macrotis is restricted to Peninsular Malaysia, Sumatra, Java and adjacent islands, and is known only from a handful of specimens. Here we report a new locality record of the species from Seremban, Peninsular Malaysia, which also represents the first known building-dweller colony of any Hypsugo from the region. We discuss the taxonomic status of two morphologically similar species, H. macrotis and H. vordermanni, and provide the first COI and cyt b gene sequences for H. macrotis and reconstruct the species' phylogenetic relationships.