Month: February 2016

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Tue 01 Mar 2016: 7.00pm – Tony O’Dempsey on “Conservation Engagement in Singapore and the Cross-Island Line”

Biodiversity & Ecology Journal Club
Department of Biological Sciences, National University of Singapore
Tuesday 01 March 2016: 7.00pm – 8.30pm @ Lecture Theatre 27

“Conservation Engagement in Singapore and the Cross-Island Line”
CRL MR TOD

By Tony O’Dempsey
Council Member & Chairman, Plant Group
Nature Society (Singapore)

Tuesday 01 March 2016: 7.00pm – 8.30pm
Lecture Theatre 27
Science Drive 1
National University of Singapore

All are welcome (open to public).

Please register at http://bejc-crl.eventbrite.com.

Hosted by: N. Sivasothi & Joelle Lai

About the talk – From early 2013, Tony O’Dempsey and other conservation experts in Singapore were in working group discussions with LTA since the announcement of the Cross Island Line in early 2013. He will present and contrast a historical view of conservation engagement over the past 50 years with a focus on the recent Cross Island Line engagement with government agencies. He will also reflect on the working group’s experience with the EIA process and review important lessons learned about how nature groups could improve the technical approach to EIA for our Nature Reserves in future engagements.

About the speaker – Tony is a GIS and Remote Sensing professional who has been living in Singapore for the past 20 years. He is a council member of Nature Society (Singapore) and is currently serving as Chairman of the Plant Group. Tony has participated in flora and fauna surveys throughout Singapore, his interests are in botany and history and sometimes mixes them up. He has been actively involved in Nature Conservation in Singapore for the past 15 years and most recently played an active role in NSS’ proposals and representations to government agencies for the Cross Island Line proposal.

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Some recent papers by the Biodiversity Crew

Some of the recent publications by the Biodiversity Crew:

  • Chisholm, R. A., Giam, X., Sadanandan, K. R., Fung, T., & Rheindt, F. E. (2016). A robust nonparametric method for quantifying undetected extinctions. Conservation Biology. – A Singapore study.
  • Tang, G. S., Sadanandan, K. R., & Rheindt, F. E. (2016). Population genetics of the olive‐winged bulbul (Pycnonotus plumosus) in a tropical urban‐fragmented landscape. Ecology and Evolution, 6(1), 78-90 – A Singapore study.
  • Chua, M. A., Sivasothi, N., & Meier, R. (2016). Population density, spatiotemporal use and diet of the leopard cat (Prionailurus bengalensis) in a human-modified succession forest landscape of Singapore. Mammal Research, 1-10. – A Singapore study.
  • Huang, D., Hoeksema, B. W., Affendi, Y. A., Ang, P. O., Chen, C. A., Huang, H., … & Yeemin, T. (2016). Conservation of reef corals in the South China Sea based on species and evolutionary diversity. Biodiversity and Conservation, 25(2), 331-344.
  • Symes, W. S., Rao, M., Mascia, M. B., & Carrasco, L. R. (2015). Why do we lose protected areas? Factors influencing protected area downgrading, downsizing and degazettement in the tropics and subtropics. Global Change Biology.
  • Painting, C. J., Rajamohan, G., Chen, Z., Zeng, H., & Li, D. (2016). It takes two peaks to tango: the importance of UVB and UVA in sexual signalling in jumping spiders. Animal Behaviour, 113, 137-146.
  • Xu, X., Liu, F., Chen, J., Ono, H., Agnarsson, I., Li, D., & Kuntner, M. (2016). Pre‐Pleistocene geological events shaping diversification and distribution of primitively segmented spiders on East Asian margins. Journal of Biogeography.
  • Su, S., Lim, M., & Kunte, K. (2015). Prey from the eyes of predators: Color discriminability of aposematic and mimetic butterflies from an avian visual perspective. Evolution, 69(11), 2985-2994.
  • Ho, S., Schachat, S. R., Piel, W. H., & Monteiro, A. (2016). Attack risk for butterflies changes with eyespot number and size. Royal Society Open Science, 3(1), 150614.
  • Webb, E. L., Wijedasa, L. S., Theilade, I., Merklinger, F., Bult, M., Steinmetz, R., & Brockelman, W. Y. (2016). James F. Maxwell: Classic Field Botanist, Inimitable Character. Biotropica, 48(1), 132-133.

    “Max lived in Singapore, studied at NUS and worked at the Singapore Botanic Gardens. He has a lot of ‘fans’ here in Singapore and in SE Asia at large who were saddened by his passing.

    Max was a spectacularly irreverent character but recognized as one of the top botanists in SE Asia; a contrast of a cheerfully abrasive personality but with a deep and genuine concern for plants, conservation and collections-based science. His collection effort over his career included tens of thousands of herbarium specimens.

    His passing has been widely felt.”

    – Edward Webb

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Undergrad part-time lab volunteers wanted for DNA analysis of marine microbial communities (Mar-Jul 2016)

Marina (Photo by Zarina Zainul)
Marina biodiversity (Photo by Zarina Zainul)

Project description:

Analysis of microbial communities from Singapore’s marinas.

Two or more part-time volunteers are required for DNA analysis from March 2016 to July 2016.

What you will learn:

  • Collection of samples from marina
  • DNA extraction of samples collected from previous experiments
  • Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and gel analysis

Candidates should be:

  • Be able help out over term time and semester break
  • Willing to learn new techniques

Contact:
Please contact Zarina Zainul, Graduate student, Experimental Marine Ecology Lab, Department of Biological Sciences, National University of Singapore at zarina (at) u.nus.edu

Field sampling

Field sampling at a marina (Photo by Zarina Zainul)