1,721,005 research outputs found
Dragonflies and damselflies of the EFForTS study area in Jambi and Bogor (Indonesia)
No full textIn context of the vegetation surveys carried out by EFForTS subproject B06, we photographed quite a lot of dragonflies and damselflies inside and near the core plots in Jambi Province (Fig. 1) and in Bogor. The core plots in Jambi cover four land‐use systems: lowland rainforest, jungle rubber agroforest, rubber plantations, and oil palm plantations. With this booklet, we would like to share those photographs and their identifications as they might be useful for others. The color guide is divided into Anisoptera (dragonflies) and Zygoptera (damselflies) and arranged alphabetically by families. The current version includes 54 species from 9 families. Please note that this guide is not based on a systematical study, but was put together just for fun
Figure 7 in Carnivorous Nepenthes pitcher plants are a rich food source for a diverse vertebrate community
No full textFigure 7. Large nectar droplets (arrow) regularly accumulate on the lower lid surface of Nepenthes gracilis pitchers early in the morning.Published as part of <i>Bauer, Ulrike, Rembold, Katja & Grafe, T. Ulmar, 2015, Carnivorous Nepenthes pitcher plants are a rich food source for a diverse vertebrate community, pp. 483-495 in Journal of Natural History 50</i> on page 491, DOI: 10.1080/00222933.2015.1059963, <a href="http://zenodo.org/record/3985530">http://zenodo.org/record/3985530</a>
Common wayside plants of Jambi Province (Sumatra, Indonesia)
No full textIn context of the vegetation surveys carried out by EFForTS subproject B06, we documented common vascular plant species inside and near the core plots in Jambi Province (Fig. 1, for details see Rembold et al. 2017). The core plots cover four land‐use systems: lowland rainforest, jungle rubber agroforest, rubber plantations, and oil palm plantations. With this booklet, we would like to share photographs of selected common or conspicuous species and their identifications as they might be useful for others. The color guide is divided into pteridophytes (lycophytes and ferns) and angiosperms and arranged alphabetically by families. The current version includes 94 plant species from 44 families and provides information about which species are native or alien to Indonesia. For more plant pictures, see the EFForTS Sumatra plant database that is currently under development (http://134.76.19.22/sumatra/home). Please be aware that species and family names are subject to changes due to identification updates or changes in plant taxonomy
Carnivorous <i>Nepenthes</i> pitcher plants are a rich food source for a diverse vertebrate community
No full textCarnivorous pitcher plants capture insect prey to acquire essential nutrients while growing on extremely poor soils. A few individual species have evolved mutualistic relationships with small mammals that visit the traps to harvest nectar, and in return leave faecal droppings in the pitchers. Here we report that a diverse guild of nectar-harvesting vertebrates visits pitchers of two common lowland Nepenthes species without providing any obvious benefit for the plants. Over four consecutive field seasons, we observed four species of sunbirds and one species of tree shrew drinking nectar from pitcher plants. Foraging activity was highest in the morning and late afternoon. Van Hasselt’s, Brown-throated and olive-backed sunbirds were regular and highly abundant pitcher visitors in two different field sites. A crimson sunbird and a lesser tree shrew were each observed harvesting nectar on one occasion. The vertebrates harvested nectar from the pitcher rim (peristome) of N. rafflesiana and from the underside of the pitcher lid of N. gracilis. A comparison of the nectar production of these and three further sympatric species revealed exceptionally high quantities of nectar for N. rafflesiana. Other factors such as plant and pitcher abundance and the habitat preferences of the observed vertebrates are likely to also play a role in their choice to visit particular species. This is the first account of a case of obvious nectar robbing from Nepenthes pitchers by a guild of species that are too large to serve as prey, while the pitcher size and shape prevent faecal droppings from reaching the pitcher’s inside. This interaction provides an example of a possible starting point for the evolution of the elaborate mutualistic relationships observed in some species. Follow-up adaptations of pitcher shape could enable the plants to catch the droppings of their visitors and turn an exploitative relationship into a mutualism
DNA barcoding of flowering plants in Sumatra, Indonesia
Full text linkAbstract The rapid conversion of Southeast Asian lowland rainforests into monocultures calls for the development of rapid methods for species identification to support ecological research and sustainable land-use management. Here, we investigated the utilization of DNA barcodes for identifying flowering plants from Sumatra, Indonesia. A total of 1,207 matK barcodes (441 species) and 2,376 rbcL barcodes (750 species) were successfully generated. The barcode effectiveness is assessed using four approaches: (a) comparison between morphological and molecular identification results, (b) best-close match analysis with TaxonDNA, (c) barcoding gap analysis, and (d) formation of monophyletic groups. Results show that rbcL has a much higher level of sequence recoverability than matK (95% and 66%). The comparison between morphological and molecular identifications revealed that matK and rbcL worked best assigning a plant specimen to the genus level. Estimates of identification success using best-close match analysis showed that >70% of the investigated species were correctly identified when using single barcode. The use of two-loci barcodes was able to increase the identification success up to 80%. The barcoding gap analysis revealed that neither matK nor rbcL succeeded to create a clear gap between the intraspecific and interspecific divergences. However, these two barcodes were able to discriminate at least 70% of the species from each other. Fifteen genera and twenty-one species were found to be nonmonophyletic with both markers. The two-loci barcodes were sufficient to reconstruct evolutionary relationships among the plant taxa in the study area that are congruent with the broadly accepted APG III phylogeny
Tropical rainforest conversion and land use intensification reduce understorey plant phylogenetic diversity
No full textConversion of rainforest into agricultural land affects multiple facets of tropical plant diversity. While the effects of tropical land use change and intensification on species diversity are comparatively well studied, the effects on phylogenetic diversity (PD) and structure of plant communities are largely unknown. Furthermore, it is not clear how the loss of native species and addition of alien species collectively affect PD and structure.
We investigated the PD and structure of understorey plants; a diverse and ecologically important, yet poorly studied group. We studied four prominent land use systems (tropical lowland rainforest, jungle rubber agroforest, rubber plantations, and oil palm plantations) in the lowlands of Sumatra (Indonesia), a region experiencing dramatic land use changes.
Across the four systems, we investigated differences in four metrics of phylogenetic community structure (PD, mean pairwise distance, mean nearest taxon distance, and their abundance‐weighted variants). Our analyses were based on a comprehensive vegetation survey consisting of 32 plots, 1,197 species of vascular plants, and 146,599 plant individuals.
Our results showed that forest conversion into agricultural systems leads to a pronounced loss of PD. Furthermore, the standardized effect size of mean pairwise distance indicated a gradual change from clustered to overdispersed phylogenetic community structure with increasing land use intensity from forest over jungle rubber to the monoculture plantations. In most land use systems, the presence or absence of alien plant species did not affect phylogenetic structure. Only in oil palm plantations, removing alien species from the data led to a more overdispersed structure. In conclusion, conserving the PD and structure requires efficient protection of the last remaining rainforests.
Synthesis and applications. Forest conversion into agricultural areas negatively affects phylogenetic understorey plant diversity and leads to a shift from clustered to overdispersed phylogenetic community structure. These trends are partly driven by alien species particularly in oil palm plantations. Protecting the remaining rainforests and considering multispecies agroforestry systems in favour of intensive monoculture plantations are thus imperative to conserve phylogenetic plant diversity and community structure
Plant diversity, forest dependency, and alien plant invasions in tropical agricultural landscapes
No full textLand-use change and intensification in tropical rainforest regions is generally linked to a loss in species diversity that especially affects forest-dependent species. Indonesia is currently the country with the highest deforestation rates worldwide with potentially devastating effects on its diverse and highly endemic flora and fauna. Here we present a comprehensive assessment of the varied effects of forest conversion and land-use intensification on vascular plant diversity across the four dominant land-use systems in the lowlands of Sumatra: rainforest, jungle rubber agroforest, rubber plantations, and oil palm plantations. We conducted plot-based species inventories in Jambi Province and assessed a total of 156,006 individuals and 1382 plant species. Forest had the highest levels of alpha, beta, and gamma diversity, followed by jungle rubber. Plant communities in oil palm plantations were characterized by a high density of herbaceous weeds, but low species numbers and low beta diversity. Species numbers were comparable in oil palm and rubber plantations, but the latter showed slightly higher beta diversity. Forest had a clearly distinct floristic composition while the floristic composition of the other systems - and especially the two plantation systems - converged. Alien species were almost completely absent from forest, but the number and relative abundance of alien species increased with increasing land-use intensity and was highest in oil palm plantations where 25% of the species and 62% of the individuals belonged to alien species. Our results represent a first quantitative baseline for how forest conversion in Southeast Asia causes loss in species richness, changes in floristic composition and vegetation structure, as well as a shift from native to alien-dominated plant communities
Distribution of invasive plant species in different land-use systems in Sumatera, Indonesia
No full textDisturbances caused by the conversion of rain forests into agricultural systems provide an opportunity for the expansion of Invasive Plant Species (IPS). Bukit Duabelas National Park is one of the few remaining lowland forests in Jambi Province (Sumatera, Indonesia). The surrounding areas up to the national park borders have already been converted into jungle rubber agroforests as well as rubber and oil palm plantations which might lead to an increased spread of IPS into the forest. This study was aimed at compiling a list of IPS and determining their distribution and coverage of IPS in four land use systems (rain forest jungle rubber, rubber and oil palm plantations). Spatial distribution patterns were investigated by creating a horizontal vegetation profile diagram for the permanent plots of the EFForTS project (Ecological and Socioeconomic Functions of Tropical Lowland Rainforest Transformation Systems, http://www.uni-goettingen.de/crc990). The dominance of IPS was determined using Important Value Index. A total of forty IPS were identified across the four land-use systems. The numbers of IPS were the highest in oil palm (28 species) and rubber plantations (27 species), and the lowest in jungle rubber (10 species). IPS were absent in the lowland rain forest. The diversity of IPS was influenced by environmental factors, especially canopy openness. IPS with the highest ground coverage were Dicranopteris linearis and Clidemia hirta. Both of them were found in all three land-use systems outside the rain forest when the forest canopy opens due to illegal logging or other human disturbances. Therefore, reforestation of disturbed areas is recommended to prevent the spread of IPS
Resource stoichiometry and availability modulate species richness and biomass of tropical litter macro-invertebrates
Full text link1. The high biodiversity and biomass of soil communities is crucial for litter decomposition in terrestrial ecosystems such as tropical forests. However, the leaf litter that these communities consume is of particularly poor quality as indicated by elemental stoichiometry. The impact of resource quantity, quality, and other habitat parameters on species richness and biomass of consumer communities is often studied in isolation, although much can be learned from simultaneously studying both community characteristics.
2. Using a data set of 780 macro-invertebrate consumer species across 32 sites in tropical lowland rainforest and agricultural systems on Sumatra, Indonesia, we investigated the effects of basal resource stoichiometry (C:X ratios of N, P, K, Ca, Mg, Na, S in local leaf litter), litter mass (basal resource quantity and habitat space), plant species richness (surrogate for litter habitat heterogeneity), and soil pH (acidity) on consumer species richness and biomass across different consumer groups (i.e., three feeding guilds and ten selected taxonomic groups).
3. In order to distinguish the most important predictors of consumer species richness and biomass, we applied a standardised model averaging approach investigating the effects of basal resource stoichiometry, litter mass, plant species richness, and soil pH on both consumer community characteristics. This standardised approach enabled us to identify differences and similarities in the magnitude and importance of such effects on consumer species richness and biomass.
4. Across consumer groups, we found litter mass to be the most important predictor of both species richness and biomass. Resource stoichiometry had a more pronounced impact on consumer species richness than on their biomass. As expected, taxonomic groups differed in which resource and habitat parameters (basal resource stoichiometry, litter mass, plant species richness, and pH) were most important for modulating their community characteristics.
5. The importance of litter mass for both species richness and biomass indicates that these tropical consumers strongly depend on habitat space and resource availability. Our study supports previous theoretical work indicating that consumer species richness is jointly influenced by resource availability and the balanced supply of multiple chemical elements in their resources
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