Casey Keat-Chuan Ng

Universiti Sains Malaysia | USM · School of Biological Sciences

Anthropogenic pressures are causing substantial degradation to the freshwater ecosystems globally and Malaysia has not escaped such a bleak scenario. Prompted by the predicament, this study's objective was to pioneer a river assessment system that can be readily adopted to monitor, manage and drive improvement in a wholesome manner. Three sets of a...

We present herein our perspective of a novel Small Habitats Matrix (SHM) concept showing how small habitats on private lands are untapped but can be valuable for mitigating ecological degradation. Grounded by the realities in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo, we model a discontinuous "stepping stones" linkage that includes both terrestrial and aquatic habit...

Ecological impairment is prevalent in built environment and habitat enrichment had begun in cities globally. Most commendable ecological landscaping initiatives are, however, centred around developed countries in temperate region. Thus the systemic approaches may be inept to capture and reflect the natural processes in tropical regions. This paper...

This study presents how a cluster of tributary watersheds was evaluated for geomorphology and ecosystem service economic value baselines. Tributary watersheds, although small, were focused herein as they are practical for community-based conservation. Based on the Market-Price Method, the watersheds were estimated to be worth USD49.59 ha−1 year−1 a...

Background: Dengue is widespread globally, but it is more severe in hyperendemic regions where the virus, its vectors, and its human hosts naturally occur. The problem is particularly acute in cities, where outbreaks affect a large human population living in a wide array of socio-environmental conditions. Controlling outbreaks will rely largely on...

There is a growing global trend of environmental, social and governance (ESG) reporting to promote business transparency. In Southeast Asia, the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Standards 305 is popularly adopted by public-listed companies for greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reporting. However, mitigation actions that link corporate GHG emission to...

The agriculture sector responsible for global food and nutrition security has an urgent need to examine climatic trends so that adaptations can be exercised in advance. Freely available dataset from satellite sources can greatly ease rainfall analysis, especially for smallholder farmers who typically operate under limited resources. Tests to determ...

Ikan dijaja berbau hanyir Sarat seperahu di seberang sana Sekilas saja ikan di air Sudah tahu jantan betina Literally translated, the popular Malay rhyme means that an expert knows whether a fish is a male or female with just a glimpse of it in the waters. For most of human history, peoples' livelihoods depend on their expertise on native species,...

Road and highway development can provide multiple benefits to society, but without careful planning, this development can result in negative social and environmental impacts. The 1,200 km Pan Borneo Highway project (PBH) in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo, is constructing new highways and up-grading 2-lane roads to 4-lane highways. We assessed the potentia...

The mangroves of the Sundaic biogeography region in Southeast Asia are ecologically diverse and highly productive. The location of mangroves close to densely populated coastlines, on the other hand, puts them in a perilous situation as socio-economic growth has intensified in the past decades. Thus, research to support conservation of remnant mangr...

Timber extraction is often cited as detrimental to wildlife ecology. Little information, however, in particular from the Southeast Asian tropics, is available on how exactly logging affects wildlife food security. To address the gap, this paper presents the first high-resolution comparison of fruit production between logged and intact forests in lo...

Morphology-based taxonomy of freshwater fish is effective when there are representative specimens covering large regions. However, in Sundaland where the presence of cryptic species is high, the technique has its limitations. This is compounded by uncritical description of holotypes in olden literature. We demonstrate the problem using Barbodes bin...

Betta nuluhon, new species, is described from a hill stream habitat in western Sabah. This species is allied to both B. chini and B. balunga, and differs from rest of its congeners in the B. akarensis group in having the following combination of characters: yellow iris when live; mature males with greenish-blue iridescence on opercle when live; mat...

Understanding the spatio-temporal pattern of precipitation is crucial when making policies to prevent disaster and support socioeconomic activities in a political region. This paper represents the first attempt to investigate the spatio-temporal precipitation pattern in Sabah by employing monthly datasets from 24 weather stations across Sabah that...

Technical comment on Research opportunities in pandemic lockdown, Science 08 May 2020: Vol. 368, Issue 6491, pp. 594-595 https://science.sciencemag.org/content/368/6491/594/tab-e-letters

Aquaculture plays a crucial role in feeding and nourishing the human population as well as contributing to food security. But the industry has a dark side. In conjunction with unsustainable practices and limited legislative controls, it can also expose human population to the industry’s negative consequences. This article offers a perspective of aq...

This study shows how the Stream Visual Assessment Protocol Version 2 that originated from United States was readapted to formulate the River Physical Quality Index (RPQI) for Malaysia. The approach emphasizes that it is not necessary to “reinvent the wheel” as globally, there are already a range of established best practices in developed countries...

The Humans, Habitats, Highways (3H) Project and Coalition lays the groundwork, reaches out, builds framework, grows relationships, forms partnerships, creates spaces and processes for nurturing advocacy and agency around the sustainability of new build and expansion of highways. The presentation begins with an overview of the Pan Borneo Highway pla...

This study investigates the published literature and incorporates our field data from 1997 to September 2018 to generate an inventory report of primary freshwater fishes for Perak State in Malaysia. We critically examined and enumerated 186 species from 2 classes, 16 orders, 43 families and 114 genera in 57 localities. A total of 173 fish species (...

The limnological habitats are receptors of pollution, thus local fish species richness is a plausible biological indicator to reflect the quality of a particular water body. However, database on species occurrence that corresponds with the water physico-chemistry constituents is often not available. The problem is compounded by the lack of species...

Many studies have provided evidence of ichthyofaunal significant relationships with inland lentic and lotic physical quality in the developed countries, but little is known about such linkages in Malaysia. This presentation describes an 18 months investigation conducted from Oct 2015 to March 2017 to ascertain the correlation in an exemplar site in...

This document is the Malaysian National Interpretation of the Common Guidance on the Identification of High Conservation Values (HCVs) which was originally produced by the HCV Resource Network (HCV RN). It supersedes the High Conservation Value Forest (HCVF) Toolkit for Malaysia published by WWF-Malaysia in 2009. As the development of this toolkit...

El Niño and Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is a natural forcing that affects global climate patterns, thereon influencing freshwater quality and security. In the advent of a strong El Niño warming event in 2016 which induced an extreme dry weather in Malaysia, water quality variation was investigated in Kampar River which supplies potable water to a p...

Francis S.P. Ng (2018) Tropical Forest Scientist (Paul J.M., Ng, Shirlyn X.L., Ng Casey, K.C., Ng and Sarifah, K.A. eds). Kepong: Forest Research Institute Malaysia. Within the framework of a memoir, this book provides; 1. Concise explanation of issues and concepts in tropical forest management. 2. An integrated overview of diversity, growth, de...

As the pressure to produce more food for the growing population becomes greater, the agriculture sector can endanger freshwater resources with its organic and inorganic waste.This article aims to shed some light on the drivers, issues and consequences created by the dilemma.

This presentation describes a case study of how Forever Sabah in partnership with the indigenous communities of Babagon Toki, Kolosunan and Tampasak have taken up the challenge of safeguarding the Babagon watershed which supplies 57% of Kota Kinabalu city's portable water. To effectively do so, the complex dynamics of biology, chemistry and physica...

Prioritization of freshwater habitat management and conservation is dependent on the availability of species baseline information at regional level. However, such information has not been updated since 2002 in Sabah. Thus the objective of this paper is to present the latest working checklist of freshwater ichthyofauna known so far in the state. A l...

Taxonomists, ecologists, geneticists or researchers from other biological fields who wish to adopt fish as a constituent of their studies often become discouraged when they find that ichthyology is a complex subject. In fish-based studies, the failure to recognize fishes as distinct biological units can lead to wrong diagnosis. Hence, this review p...

Freshwater fish biodiversity is a precious natural asset in terms of economic, cultural and scientific interest. And yet, the inland freshwater ecosystem in Malaysia is declining at a far greater rate than terrestrial ecosystems in the tropics. What happened, and what is being done to address the crisis? This paper extracts findings from the late...

Suppliers and buyers in the ornamental fish industry must recognize that the wild stock will be critically endangered if ethical collection is not practiced and the habitats are not conserved. If the states and authorities want to see the multi million dollar industry flourish, they must begin to protect the habitats and control commercial collecti...

Community engagement often built off indigenous knowledge and that its power was the fact that it was driven by local questions that immediately connected people to what they value about “their own place.” Despite challenges with getting indigenous knowledge published and accepted by mainstream science, it is a traditional asset that is relevant, p...

Successful farmers are talented, resourceful and knowledgeable. They are rugged and time-tested individuals who typically possess many ‘trade secrets’ acquired through years of field work and refined through many challenging experiences. Most importantly, their products are essential and they put food on the tables in all homes. However, in Malaysi...

MD2 has been identified as a key crop under the National Key Economic Area (NKEA) of the Economic Transformation Programme (ETP). With regard to agriculture, NKEA’s key objectives are to penetrate global markets and to ensure national food security. 16 Entry Point Projects (EPPs) and 11 business opportunities have been planned and carried out to ac...

This article explores the use of leaves in food preparation and packaging. Everybody who has grown up in the tropics knows about the use of leaves for packaging food but the documentation is spotty – best for banana leaves but rather poor for the numerous other species.

The pamelo, the largest of citrus fruits, in indigenous in Southeast Asia and uniquely identified with local food and culture. This article briefly describes its origins, roles in various societies and the challenges in cultivating pamelos.

The Chinese in Malaysia and Singapore observe New Year traditions with a strong Cantonese or Southern Chinese flavour, centred on the themes of prosperity, luck and abundance. There is intense demand for food and ornaments that symbolize these themes. A potted "gatzai" (Citrus microcarpa), heavily laden with fruit for Chinese New Year is as importa...

The world of cultivated banana may be much more variable than what is suggested in the literature. In this survey, each variety is recorded by its local name, with photographs, and a list of characteristic features.