Teaching award recipients 2008/9

28 Sep 2009 – News from Rudolf Meier:

“I am very happy to convey the news about teaching in AY2008/2009. DBS did very well and received the largest number of faculty teaching awards for any FOS [Faculty of Science] department (7). We also topped the list for part-time TA awards.

With best wishes,

Rudolf Meier”

—

Faculty Teaching Excellence Award Winners

• Dr Chew Fook Tim
• Prof Chou Loke Ming
• Dr Lam Siew Hong
• A/P Loh Chiang Shiong
• Mr N Sivasothi
• Dr Seow Teck Keong
• A/P Yu Hao

Faculty Honour Roll Inductions

• Prof Ip Yuen Kwong, Alex
• A/P Rudolf Meier

TA (Part Time) Winners

• Ang Hui Fang Andie
• Ang Yuchen
• Hee Kim Hor Daryl
• Lim Shimin Gwynne
• Loong Ai May
• Jose Christopher E. Mendoza
• Ng Yi Hui Eunice
• Laura Yap Yen Ling
• Tok Chia Yee

Staff, students and alumni at the International Coastal Cleanup Singapore @ Pandan mangrove

Over three Saturdays in September, some 40 organisations hit the beaches and mangroves around Singapore as part of the International Coastal Cleanup Singapore in an effort to count, categorise and collect marine trash.

This data which is reported to the international coordinator, Ocean Conservancy, to create awareness, effect policy change and provide material for public education. Around the world, 70-100 countries take part annually

The Singapore programme is in its 18th year and I have been national coordinator since 2000 as a result of seeing so much trash in the mangroves! After more than ten years of mangrove cleanups, I finally turned my attention to Sungei Pandan mangrove in 2008. This tiny remnant strip nearby campus has accumulated a heavy load of trash over the years.

Partnering department alumni, staff and students who anchor this cleanup is Wildlife Reserves Singapore (Singapore Zoo, Night Safari and Jurong Bird Park), our co-founding ICC partners at this site – and they count some of our alumni amongst their staff!

Here are some photos from the cleanup featuring some familiar faces – the rest are at the Habitatnews Flickr album and WRS photos are on Fotki. Data results are on the ICCS webpage.

Lots more out there so join us at Lim Chua Kang (Jul/Aug) and Pandan (Sep) next year. Just join the mailing list on the ICCS webpage and I’ll alert you next year.

Pandan mangrove

Getting ready at 7.45am at the Jalan Buroh bus-stop

Getting ready – two of the ‘Indpendents’ and Adrian Loo (alumni)

Weiting (hons) taking a break from her thesis in the mangrove core!

Robert (postgrad) too worked in the depth of the mangrove

Yea Tian (hons) kept up with the mangrove core team to record data

Trina (hons) was determined to be mosquito-proof

Joelle (staff) and Yandi (alumni) removing a mattress

Biswajit (alumni/WRS) wading in

Anne and Trina (hons) and Yandi (alumni) rescuing a volunteer

Anne Devan (hons) in action!

Yea Tian (hons) and Xuiling (2nd year) weighing and recording trash
with the hard working ‘Independents’

DBS Crew with Independents

Sivasothi (staff) with Biswajit and Desmond (alumni/WRS)
and WRS coordinator Charlotte.

Glove cleaning – recycling the welder’s gloves for next year
Alison Wee (postgrad and ICCS Penang liason), N. Sivasothi (ICCS Coordinator)
and Teo Yea Tian (hons) facing camera

At NIE LT3 today, 6.30pm: World Food Prize laureate MV Gupta on ‘Freshwater Aquaculture and global demand.’

“Freshwater Aquaculture – Prospects and Challenges for meeting the global demand.”

By Dr. M. Vijaya Gupta Ph.D, D.Sc (Hon)
World Food Prize Laureate
Assistant Director General, WorldFish Center (Retd.)
Senior Research Fellow, WorldFish Center, Malaysia

Tue 15 Sep 2009: 6:30 pm – 9:30 pm.
Venue: LT3, Block 7 Science Block, NIE, NTU
Click to see Map

Thanks to Shirley Lim, NIE/NTU, for the invitation.

About the speaker:.

“Through his dedicated and sustained efforts in Bangladesh, Laos and other countries in Southeast Asia , Dr. Gupta made small scale aquaculture a viable means for over one million very poor farmers and women to improve their family’s nutrition and wellbeing,” – Kenneth Quinn, president of the World Food Prize Foundation, 2005.

• See the World Food Prize laureate webpage.
• “Challenges in Sustaining and Increasing Fish Production to Combat Hunger and Poverty in Asia,” by MV Gupta. NAGA, WorldFish Center Quarterly Vol. 29 No. 1 & 2 Jan-Jun 2006 – pdf link.
• “Modadugu Gupta’s Blue Revolution.” Siliconeer, 6(7), 2005.
  

• News link: “Indian fish-farm researcher nets World Food Prize,” by James Njoroge. SciDev.Net, 19 Jul 2005. Gupta’s research focussed on improving rural livelihoods by farming freshwater fish.
  

  Nobel Peace Prize laureate Norman Borlaug [Father of the Green Revolution] set up the World Food Prize in 1986. Each year, it honours individuals who have made “vital contributions to improving the quality, quantity, or availability of food throughout the world”.

  Modadugu V. Gupta, who recently retired from the Malaysia-based WorldFish Centre, spent more than 30 years researching ways of making fish farming a sustainable contributor to rural livelihoods.

  He has won the 2005 World Food Prize for his efforts to introduce fish farming to poor communities across Asia and parts of Africa

  Announcing the US$250,000 award on 13 June, Kenneth Quinn, president of the World Food Prize Foundation, said that thanks to Gupta’s efforts, more than one million Asian farmers had improved their family’s nutrition and well being

  Gupta focused on making it possible for poor farmers to raise fish in freshwater ponds with a minimum of inputs. He showed how farm waste such as weeds or grass could be used in place of costly fish feed and encouraged farmers to alternate agriculture and fish farming on seasonally flooded
  land.

  According to Quinn, Gupta’s efforts brought “the Blue Revolution to those most in need” and led to freshwater fish production increasing by 3-5 times in some developing countries.’

ICCS Pandan mangroves cleanup: Registration for BioD Crew

Pandan mangroves is a remnant strip mangrove in the south-west of Singapore. As it is not looked after, there is a trash build up that is deterimental to the site. The Raffles Museum Toddycats and the BioD Crew (NUS) and Wildlife Reserve Singapore are conducting a cleanup for the second year under the International Coastal Cleanup Singapore. This year we will be joined by some trainees from the Singapore Police Force.

The deeper parts of the inlet is a tough and dirty site to tackle, with no shelters or toilets but soft mud, lots of mosquitoes in tide pools and some snakes instead! We will work rain or shine and are restricting numbers to reduce impact.

This cleanup is not for the faint-hearted but the Biodiversity Crew and Raffles Museum Toddycats who are up for it are invited to sign up at here:

Saturday, 12th September 2009: 7.20am – 11.00am
International Coastal Cleanup Singapore:
Pandan Mangroves
Register at: http://tinyurl.com/iccspandan2009

Photo by Kelly Ong

Itinerary:

• 0710 – bus pick up at NUS
• 0720 – bus pick-up from Dover MRT (one stop west after Buona Vista)
• 0800 – reach Pandan mangroves bus stop; distribute into sub-groups, apply insect repellent, collect gloves, data cards and trash bags.
• 0810 – Safety Briefing, identification of the Trash Weighing Point (TWP), wet weather plan (carry on unless lightning threat)
• 0820 – Cleanup begins.
• 0845 – Loading teams start moving trash to the TWP
• 1000 – clean-up ends, data collation beings, weighing completed while participants evaluate the situation at Pandan.
• 1015 – participants clean themselves up – note no washing point, so bring a bottle of tap water and a change of footwear.
• 1045 – Pack dirty gloves to bring back wash, dry and return.
• 1100 – Bus returns to Clementi and then NUS.

What we will provide:

1. Transport to site.
2. Gloves.
3. Trash bags.
4. Weighing scales.

What you should bring:

1. Booties or covered shoes with hard soles.
2. Water bottle (at least one litre of water).
3. A snack to munch on after the cleanup, especially if you didn’t have time for breakfast!
4. Hat.
5. Insect repellent
6. Raincoat/ponco (we’ll carry on working in the rain)
7. Towel in a bag – to wipe off any sand and mud off you.
8. A light pair of long pants will help protect your legs from insect bites if you tend to get bitten, as well as from the debris.
9. A suggestion – dry fit clothes are suitable. If you prefer cotton, a change of t-shirt will come in handy after a sweaty workout.

Transport:
Registered participants can meet us at either

1. the NUS bus stop outside Science Drive 1 (7.10am; meet Otterman) or
2. Dover MRT Station bus stop on side of Singapore Polytechnic (heading west) (7.20am; meet Kelly Ong).

7.10am Pick Up Point – Meet N. Sivasothi a.k.a. Otterman

7.20am Pick up Point – Meet Kelly Ong.

Cleanup location concentration

Welcome back Darren!

Darren Yeo is back after two years at Notre Dame. Welcome back, dude!

Looking for gravid females

A bunch of students from Ecolab accompanied honours student Joanne Khew (in blue) on her field trip to catch a female gravid tree-climbing crab, Episesarma sp. It was a pleasant morning’s field trip to get a glimpse of the crab’s behaviour.

They used the typically “high-tech” equipment to get the job done and two individuals were brought back to the department aquarium. Joanne will be observing the larvae when they hatch.

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.”

Fri 18 Sep 2009: 7pm @ NUS DBS Conference Room – Reuben Clements asks “Is there hope for rhinos, elephants and tigers in Malaysia?”

“Trio under threat: Is there hope for Rhinos, Elephants and Tigers in Malaysia?”

By Reuben Clements
Species Conservation Manager
WWF-Malaysia

Friday, 18 Sep 2009: 7.00pm
This will be a talk, Q&A and discussion session.

Venue: Conference Room
Block S3, Level 5 (next to the general office),
Department of Biological Sciences,
National University of Singapore.

Please let me know you are coming:

Register at http://tinyurl.com/bejc-19sep2009

Host: N. Sivasothi

Abstract – “Three of Malaysia’s charismatic large mammal species are experiencing diverging fates.

Populations of the Sumatran Rhinoceros (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis) have been decimated by chronic hunting and loss of lowland forests to the point costly management interventions are being developed to prevent its extinction.

Asian Elephant (Elephas maximus) populations appear to be stable and even increasing in some areas. However, escalating levels of human-elephant conflict due to land conversion will eventually threaten their long-term survival.

The Malayan Tiger (Panthera tigris) is at a crossroads – the National Tiger Action Plan for Malaysia was recently initiated by the federal government to double the current wild population by 2020. However, this can only happen if illegal hunting of both tiger and prey species in important tiger habitats is arrested as soon as possible.

Reuben will discuss these threats and associated scientific, management and policy challenges. He will also highlight recent conservation initiatives (e.g., the Borneo Rhino Sanctuary, Malaysian Conservation Alliance for Tigers) that can help secure the future of these species in Malaysia, as well as other range states within Southeast Asia.”

About the speaker – Reuben Clements completed his BSc (Hons) and MSc degrees with the Department of Biological Sciences in 2007, publishing 14 scientific papers on animal behaviour, biogeography, conservation science, ecology and systematics. A member of with the IUCN/SSC Mollusc Specialist Group and IUCN Cave and Karst Task Force, he has reviewed papers for Animal Conservation, Biological Conservation and Journal of Biogeography and his work has been featured in the New York Times, National Geographic, Nature, CNN and the Straits Times and of course, this blog!

As a student he volunteered with the International Coastal Cleanup Singapore programme and participated in salvage operations on Pulau Ular and Tanjung Chek Jawa, Singapore.

He joined WWF-Malaysia in late 2007, where as Species Conservation Manager, he manages the Malayan tiger and the Sumatran rhinoceros projects in Peninsular Malaysia. His team implements activities involving large mammal monitoring, identification of ecological linkages, human-wildlife conflict mitigation, anti-poaching and community outreach.

His journey in conservation started locally and went regional under the mentorship of his professors in NUS, Li Daiqin, Peter Ng and Navjot Sodhi and shaped by his volunteer activities on the ground in Singapore.

DBS Public Lectures, 18 Aug 2009: Paul Matusudaira and Leo Tan

Register at the DBS 60th Anniversary Public Lectures webpage.

Click for pdf

DBS 60th anniversary lecture series

All lectures @ LT 31: 6.30pm – 8.00pm
Abstracts and registration at the DBS 60th Anniversary Webpage – link.

Tues, 18 August 2009

• Prof. Paul Matsudaira – ‘Movement is Life’
• Prof. Leo Tan – ‘Confessions of a Nature Addict’

Tues, 1 September 2009

• Assoc. Prof. Hugh Tan – ‘Cultivating the Native Plants of Singapore’
• Dr. Chew Fook Tim – ‘Your Sweat: Wound Healer, Virus Inhibitor and Bacteria Killer’

Tues, 15 September 2009

• Prof. Richard Corlett – ‘Plants on the Move: Seed Dispersal and Climate Change’
• Assoc. Prof. Lim Tit Meng – ‘Programmed Cell Death: What Happens When the Programme Fails?’

Tues, 29 September 2009

• Adj Assoc. Prof. Stella Tan – ‘CSI: NUS – Forensic Science and the Law.’
• Prof. Peter Ng – ‘Climate Change and Marine Biodiversity – Lessons from a Small Red Dot’