“Wild Singapore” the book, on special sale for NUS Students & Staff this Fri 19 Oct & Tue 23 Oct 2012

Super-Special Sale for NUS students and staff

The long-awaited hard cover book, “Wild Singapore” By Geoffrey Davison, Ria Tan and Benjamin Lee will be launched in November and the price will be $69.90.

The publisher, Pansing Distribution Pte Ltd, has agreed to extend a limited and super special offer of $40.00 to ALL students and staff of NUS at the first book sale for this publication!

All NUS staff and students are welcome to come down and purchase the Wild Singapore book at these locations and times. Just show your matric/staff card to enjoy the super-special price!

Fri 19 Oct 2012: 1.00pm-3.00pm
Outside Life Science Lab 7 (S2-03)
(Before the LSM1103 Animal Diversity Practical)

Tue 23 Oct 2012: 3.00pm – 5.00pm
NUS LT32 lobby (S1A-01)
(Before the LSM1103 Ecydysozoa II & Deuterostomes I Lecture)

Map: http://map.sivasothi.com

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New Book: Decapod Crustacean Phylogenetics

A new book, Decapod Crustacean Phylogenetics includes two chapters co-written by Peter Ng with contributions by many familiar friends of the Systematics & Ecology Lab.

The book blurb reads,

“Decapod crustaceans are of tremendous interest and importance evolutionarily, ecologically, and economically. There is no shortage of publications reflecting the wide variety of ideas and hypotheses concerning decapod phylogeny, but until recently, the world’s leading decapodologists had never assembled to elucidate and discuss relationships among the major decapod lineages and between decapods and other crustaceans.

Based on the findings presented by an international group of scientists at a symposium supported by the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology, The Crustacean Society, and several other societies, and with major funding from the National Science Foundation, Decapod Crustacean Phylogenetics provides a comprehensive synopsis of the current knowledge of this vast and important group of animals.

This volume contains state-of-the-art reviews of literature and methodologies for elucidating decapod phylogeny. The contributions include studies on the fossil origin of decapods, morphological and molecular phylogenetic analyses, the evolution of mating and its bearing on phylogeny, decapod evo-devo studies, decapod spermiocladistics, and phylogenetic inference.

The experts also present research on preliminary attempts to construct the first known phylogenetic tree for various groups of decapods. Several contributions offer the most comprehensive analyses to date on major clades of decapods, and others introduce data or approaches that could be used in the future to help resolve the phylogeny of the Decapoda.

Currently, the Decapoda contain an estimated 15,000 species, some of which support seafood and marine industries worth billions of dollars each year to the world’s economy. This volume is a fascinating overview of where we are currently in our understanding of these important creatures and their phylogeny and also provides a window into the future of decapod research. This work will be of great interest to researchers, instructors, and students in marine biology, evolutionary biology, crustacean biology, resource management, and biodiversity database management.”

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New book by Richard Corlett, “The Ecology of Tropical East Asia”

Richard’s new book is out (Publication date: 14 May 2009). Unfortunately it is an OUP book so is costly – US$61.23+ (paperpback) and US$126.07 on Amazon US, £28.45 (paperback) and £61.75 (hardback) on Amazon UK. Update: The Barnes & Noble price is cheaper – US$48.75.

Update (30 May 2009): Mail from Ng Bee Choo of Nature’s Niche:

“We have just received stock of this important ecology book. Retail Price is S$55.00 inclusive of GST.

Stock currently available at our shop at Mandai Road. It will be available at Sentosa Nature Shop next week.”

The OUP page describes the Ecology of Tropical East Asia as (amongst other things):

the first book to describe the terrestrial ecology of the entire East Asian tropics and subtropics, from southern China to western Indonesia. It deals with plants, animals, and the ecosystems they inhabit, as well as the diverse threats to their survival and the options for conservation.

This book provides the background knowledge of the region’s ecology needed by both specialists and non-specialists to put their own work into a broader context.

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New Diptera Book

We are pleased to announce that the book “Diptera Diversity: Status, Challenges and Tools” has been published. Prof Meier is one of three editors of this hotly-anticipated book for all dipterists.

This very attractive book not only comes complete with comprehensive information about Diptera biodiversity, it also includes gorgeous colour pictures and photos of flies, maps (and charts). It retails for €119/US$186 here.

Some of us may remember Dr. Patrick Grootaert from the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, a dolichopodid expert and regular collaborator with the NUS Biodiversity group. In this book, he authors a fascinating chapter on the diversity and taxonomic challenges of Oriental Diptera. He is currently here in Singapore to lay out the framework for the SMIP (Singapore Mangrove Insect Project) and to provide us with vast quantities of Belgian chocolate.

Incidentally, Prof Meier also coauthors 2 chapters with our biodiversity alumni, Gaurav G. Vaidya and Guanyang Zhang, who is currently at UC Riverside completing his PhD on the systematics of reduviids (assassin bugs).

Here’s a shoutout to the Heteropteran Systematics Lab @ UCR, current home of two ex-evolab denizens.

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Plant Magic: Auspicious and Inauspicious Plants from Around the World

Assoc. Prof. Hugh Tan and his student, Giam Xingli co-authored the recently published “Plant Magic”!

What started as a humble UROPS project (Xingli’s Auspicious and inauspicious plants of the world) has now become a book worth reading and keeping!

To all aspiring naturalists currently working on their UROPS projects, keep working hard! One day, it might be your name on the book!

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Meier’s new chapter in book: “Rensch’s rule in insects: patterns among and within species”

Rudolf Meier has co-authored a chapter in the new book on sexual size dimorphism.

Blanckenhorn, W. U., R. Meier & T. Teder, 2007. Rensch’s rule in insects: patterns among and within species. In: Fairbairn, D. J., W. U. Blanckenhorn & T. Székely (eds.), Sex, Size and Gender Roles: Evolutionary Studies of Sexual Size Dimorphism. Oxford University Press.

Abstract – Rensch’s rule is a common pattern of allometry for sexual size dimorphism among animal species. This chapter evaluates Rensch’s rule in insects, using three levels of analysis. When comparisons are made among species, Rensch’s rule is not more common than that which would be expected by chance: it occurs in Diptera (flies) and Heteroptera (Gerridae; water striders), but not in other insect groups.

Comparisons among populations within species also show little evidence of Rensch’s rule, although when the populations were ordered by latitude, Rensch’s rule was more common than that which would be expected by chance. Within populations, body size tends to be more phenotypically plastic in females than in males, resulting in allometry opposite to Rensch’s rule. Data on scathophagid and sepsid flies show that patterns across the three levels of comparison do not correspond well.

Thus, in insects, neither the allometric patterns nor their causative processes can be generalized among taxa or among levels of analysis.

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