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Introduction
Current institution
Publications
Publications (44)
The wildlife trade is a major cause of species loss and a pathway for disease transmission. Socioeconomic drivers of the wildlife trade are influential at the local scale yet rarely accounted for in multinational agreements aimed at curtailing international trade in threatened species. In recent decades (1998-2018), approximately 421,000,000 threat...
Flow of terrestrial carbon though aquatic ecosystems (allochthony) is an important but underestimated component of the global carbon cycle. A lack of clear consensus about the importance of allochthonous (terrestrial) organic carbon is sometimes attributed to uncertainties associated with conventional ‘bulk’ isotope data, the most widely used ecolo...
River damming and other anthropogenic disturbances of natural habitats are among the main drivers of species loss through a range of direct and indirect effects. While the effects of river damming on aquatic species are relatively well studied, particularly with regard to their impacts on diadromous species and stenotopic riverine specialists, ther...
Studies of ecosystem functions are gaining traction in the scientific community along with a growing consensus that losses in ecosystem functions have widespread consequences. Food webs, which are networks comprising all trophic interactions (represented by links) between taxa present in a community (represented by nodes), are important aspects of...
This chapter focuses on changes due to anthropogenic activities, invasive fish species and changes in biodiversity in freshwater lakes and rivers in South East Asia. SE Asia's fresh waters are expected to be under increasing pressure from the region's rapidly growing human population. This will likely be exacerbated by the synergy between various a...
The global proliferation of dams has altered flow and sediment regimes in rivers, presenting a major threat to freshwater biodiversity. Diadromous species, such as fishes, decapod crustaceans and gastropods, are particularly susceptible to fragmentation because dams obstruct their breeding migrations between coastal waters and rivers. Although dams...
The global ornamental fish trade presents significant challenges to conservation of biodiversity. Here we explore patterns in the freshwater ornamental fish market in Hong Kong, a major wildlife trading hub. Weekly surveys over three-months in the primary aquarium district documented 540 freshwater fish species from 73 families. We found that speci...
We investigated Eurasian Skylark Alauda arvensis avoidance of powerlines and their pylons by assessing the spatial distribution of Skylark territories. We mapped territory centres in a central German agricultural landscape during 2020 and used Bayesian logistic regression models to test if distances from powerlines and pylons are predictive of the...
Dam construction has fragmented and substantially altered streams globally, obstructing migrations between coastal and freshwater habitats by diadromous animals. We undertook a territory-wide survey of decapod species (shrimps and crabs) in Hong Kong, southern China, examining spatial and seasonal variability in assemblage composition, and the impa...
China has experienced substantial coastal reclamation and damming of rivers. These changes have the potential to impact migrations of diadromous fishes between the sea and fresh waters, but the composition of these fishes and the impacts of barriers to their movement in China have received little attention. We inventoried the species composition an...
Amongst fishes, zebrafish (Danio rerio) has gained popularity as a model system over most other species and while their value as a model is well documented, their usefulness is limited in certain fields of research such as behavior. By embracing other, less conventional experimental organisms, opportunities arise to gain broader insights into evolu...
Background
Over the decades, a small number of model species, each representative of a larger taxa, have dominated the field of biological research. Amongst fishes, zebrafish (Danio rerio) has gained popularity over most other species and while their value as a model is well documented, their usefulness is limited in certain fields of research such...
Non-native fishes are widespread in Hong Kong and many are likely to be established. Extensive field
surveys, literature reviews, and citizen science data were used to determine the diversity, geographic distribution,
potential introduction sources, and known impacts of non-native freshwater fishes in Hong Kong. In total, 95
species, including five...
Recent biodiversity surveys in the lentic habitats of Singapore revealed that non-native cichlids (at least 14 species from different origins) were the most abundant species in the reservoirs of Singapore. To understand the diversity and distribution patterns in six reservoirs (two inland and four coastal), we investigated the species richness and...
Food webs summarise trophic interactions of the biotic components within an ecosystem, which can influence nutrient dynamics and energy flows, ultimately affecting ecosystem functions and services. Food webs represent the hypothesised trophic links between predators and prey and can be presented as empirical food webs, in which the relative strengt...
The African sharptooth catfish, Clarias gariepinus , is a globally invasive species with known severe impacts, including native species declines through ecological (e.g., competition, predation) and genetic interactions (e.g., hybridisation, introgression). The species was introduced to the Malay Peninsula in the late 1980s, and has since become wi...
Fungi link detrital resources and metazoan consumers through their role as decomposers. However, fungal contributions to metazoans may be misestimated in amino acid isotope studies because fungi are capable of both synthesizing amino acids (AAs) de novo and absorbing AAs from their environment. While fungi cultured in AA‐free media have been used t...
While a variety of anthropogenic impacts on lotic biodiversity have been documented, food-web responses to catchment development are poorly understood. We selected 27 stream food webs of comparable quality and conducted an analysis to assess the effect of catchment development on food-web structure. We quantified population densities, built-up area...
• Turtles from Asia are on the brink of extinction with 53% of species considered endangered or critically endangered. Unfortunately, the ecology of many threatened species remains largely unknown.
• In this study, the diet of the endangered Beale’s eyed turtle (Sacalia bealei) was investigated using two methods, visual faecal content analysis and...
As global biodiversity is being lost at an alarming rate, urban green infrastructures can potentially play a beneficial role in biodiversity conservation. Such infrastructures are produced and managed by practitioners. Analogous to engineering inspection, the ecological performance of such infrastructures also needs to be evaluated: not only for as...
Studies have shown that food chain length is governed by interactions between species richness, ecosystem size and resource availability. While redundant trophic links may buffer impacts of species loss on food chain length, higher extinction risks associated with predators may result in bottom‐heavy food webs with shorter food chains.
The lack of...
A 2.7-km canalised section of the Kallang River, a major storm-water drain and reservoir spillway in Singapore, was rehabilitated into a 3-km naturalised, meandering river between 2009 and 2011. A combination of plants, natural materials, and civil engineering techniques were introduced to soften the edges of the waterway, to give it a more natural...
Background
Smartphone apps have shown potential in enhancing weight management in Western populations in the short to medium term. With a rapidly growing obesity burden in Asian populations, researchers are turning to apps as a service delivery platform to reach a larger target audience to efficiently address the problem.
Objective
This systematic...
BACKGROUND
Smartphone apps have shown potential in enhancing weight management in Western populations in the short to medium term. With a rapidly growing obesity burden in Asian populations, researchers are turning to apps as a service delivery platform to reach a larger target audience to efficiently address the problem.
OBJECTIVE
This systematic...
In Southeast Asia, biodiversity‐rich forests are being extensively logged and converted to oil palm monocultures. Although the impacts of these changes on biodiversity are largely well documented, we know addition to samples we collected in 201 little about how these large‐scale impacts affect freshwater trophic ecology. We used stable isotope anal...
This book contains topics on the role of climatic factors on the epidemiology, prevalence, distribution, prevention and control of fish diseases. The 25 chapters that are divided into three main parts that discuss freshwater ecosystems and biological sequestrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide; microbial diseases (viral, bacterial and fungal infec...
Recent biodiversity surveys in the lentic habitats of Singapore revealed that non-native cichlids (at least 14 species from different origins) were the most abundant species in the reservoirs of Singapore. To understand the diversity and distribution patterns in six reservoirs (two inland and four coastal), we investigated the species richness and...
A total of 123 species of non-native freshwater fish, including seven possible hybrids, are recorded from the inland waters in Singapore. The majority (84 species, 68.3%) are from four families: Cyprinidae (37 species, 30.1%), Cichlidae (30 species, 24.4%), Osphronemidae (9 species, 7.3%), and Poeciliidae (8 species, 6.5%). Of these, 42 species-mai...
Compound‐specific isotope analysis of amino acids (CSIA‐AA) is a promising nascent technique that alleviates many shortcomings of conventional bulk‐tissue stable isotope analysis (“bulk SIA”) in ecological studies involving the tracing/reconstruction of carbon and nitrogen pathways. While CSIA‐AA has been increasingly applied to preserved tissue sa...
Macrophytes are widely recognized for improving water quality and stabilizing the desirable clear‐water state in lakes. The positive effects of macrophytes on water quality have been noted to be weaker in the (sub)tropics compared to those of temperate regions. We conducted a global meta‐analysis using 47 studies that met our set criteria to assess...
Ecological networks are useful for describing the complex trophic interactions within an ecosystem and hold great potential for ecosystem-based management. However, owing to the complexity and limited knowledge on the trophic interactions of natural food webs, it is challenging to make quantitative predictions about ecological community response to...
Fresh waters are increasingly threatened by flow modification. Knowledge about the impacts of flow modification is incomplete, especially in the tropics where ecological studies are only starting to emerge in recent years. Using presence/absence data dated approximately four decades apart (~1966 to ~2010) from 10 tropical rivers, we assessed the ch...
Community level ecological traits are thought to affect invasibility as more diverse communities with complex trophic interactions may be associated with greater biotic resistance. Elucidation of the nature of this relationship is often hampered by difficulties in characterising food webs, particularly where field data are lacking. We attempted to...
Anthropogenic removal of natural dispersal barriers and modification of natural habitats have contributed to the spread of non-native species. Potential invaders that are cryptic in appearance and/or behaviour are particularly troublesome as this confounds efforts to detect or manage incipient invasions. Here we report one such invader, the Florida...
Abstract. Exotic species—especially predators—are a potential threat to native species communities and ecosystems worldwide. Introduced exotic species may cause changes in anti-predator behaviour of prey species, thus affecting prey individuals’ time allocations for other crucial behaviours such as feeding and locating mates. To test this hypothesi...
The South American cichlid fish, Acarichthys heckelii, is one of many exotic species established in Singapore’s artificial freshwater habitat; forming the only recorded population outside its native distribution. The discovery of an A. heckelii individual in a sensitive natural waterway (Nee Soon Swamp Forest) prompted this study, which aimed to in...
Ecology and origin of the introduced cichlid Acarichthys heckelii in Singapore's fresh waters—first instance of establishment
This study asked whether reductive traits in cave organisms evolve at a slower pace (suggesting neutral evolution under relaxed selection) than constructive changes, which are likely to evolve under directional selection. We investigated 11 subterranean and seven surface populations of Sundathelphusa freshwater crabs on Bohol Island, Philippines, a...
Six species of cichlid fishes: Apistogramma borellii, Astronotus ocellatus, Cichla temensis, Herichthys carpintis, Maylandia estherae, and Pterophyllum scalare, and an artificial hybrid, the 'blood parrot', are recorded from Singapore based on single or few specimens. They are believed to be discarded pets or escapees, and there is as yet no eviden...
