Jillian LS Ooi

University of Malaya | UM · Department of Geography

Global seagrass losses parallel significant declines observed in corals and mangroves over the past 50 years. These combined declines have resulted in accelerated global losses to ecosystem services in coastal waters. Seagrass meadows can be extensive (hundreds of square kilometers) and long-lived (thousands of years), with the meadows persisting p...

Background: Seagrass species in the tropics occur in multispecies meadows. How these meadows are maintained through species co-existence and what their ecological drivers may be has been an overarching question in seagrass biogeography. In this study, we quantify the spatial structure of four co-existing species and infer potential ecological proc...

Seagrasses are clonal plants that grow submerged in dynamic sedimentary environments where burial is a common occurrence. Clonal organisms may respond to burial in very different ways depending on how strongly integrated they are through horizontal rhizomes, but the effect of clonal integration under conditions of stress such as burial is poorly st...

Seagrasses are habitats with significant ecological and economic functions but we have limited knowledge of seagrasses in Southeast Asia, the hypothesized centre-of-origin for tropical seagrasses. There have been only 62 ISI-cited publications on the seagrasses of Southeast Asia in the last three decades and most work has been in few sites such as...

The effective and reliable monitoring of fish communities is important for the management and protection of marine ecosystems. Environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding is a relatively new method that has been widely used in recent years, while traditional sampling via fish catching (i.e., gillnets) is one of the most common and reliable fish monitori...

Seagrass proteomes and peptidomes are an understudied area awaiting more intensive exploration. Information garnered from such studies will not only benefit the current effort to better understand the biology of seagrasses, but also facilitate the discovery of biomarkers for seagrass health monitoring, and that of lead compounds for the development...

In this study, 16 major proteins of P. australis were hydrolyzed in silico to simulate gastrointestinal digestion. Selected peptides that had been predicted as promising antioxidants were investigated for their ability to interact with free radicals and modulators of cellular oxidative status (myeloperoxidase, xanthine oxidase, and Kelch-like ECH-a...

Coastal communities are directly afected by climate change-induced disasters. Apart from all other disasters, tidal inundation is common in coastal areas. As a damaging phenomenon, it massively infuences the socioeconomic sectors in the coastal community. The main objective of this qualitative investigation is to know the adaptation practices of th...

Coastal communities are directly affected by climate change-induced disasters. Apart from all other disasters, tidal inundation is common in coastal areas. As a damaging phenomenon, it massively influences the socioeconomic sectors in the coastal community. The main objective of this qualitative investigation is to know the adaptation practices of...

In Southeast Asia, seagrass meadows are under threat through coastal development and increased pollution, but remain understudied. The dugong is a marine herbivore that is dependent on the availability of seagrass as a primary food source. In this study, we assess the patterns of co-occurrence between dugongs and seagrass. We hypothesize that the c...

Seagrass meadows are critical marine ecosystems. They are significant carbon sinks and play numerous important roles in coastal areas. They help to prevent shoreline erosion and serve as nursery grounds for many marine species. Like their terrestrial counterparts, seagrasses form symbiotic relationships with diverse communities of bacteria that hel...

Nature-based Solutions (NbS) have been advocated to protect, sustainably manage, and restore natural or modified ecosystems, simultaneously providing human well-being and biodiversity benefits. The uptake of NbS differs regionally with some countries exhibiting greater uptake than others. The success of NbS also differs regionally with varying envi...

Integrating Multibeam Echosounder (MBES) data (bathymetry and backscatter) and underwater video technology allows scientists to study marine habitats. However, use of such data in modeling suitable seagrass habitats in Malaysian coastal waters is still limited. This study tested multiple spatial resolutions (1 and 50 m) and analysis window sizes (3...

Distributed across both the tropical Atlantic and Pacific oceans, the seagrass Halophilia ovalis stabilizes coastal sediment, thereby preventing shoreline erosion and is also an important food source for megaherbivores such as dugongs. However, seagrass meadows globally are under severe duress due to both climate change and anthropogenic activities...

Although Southeast Asia is a hotspot of global seagrass diversity, there are considerable information gaps in the distribution of seagrass beds. Broad-scale seagrass distribution has not been updated in the global seagrass database by UNEP-WCMC since 2000, although studies on seagrasses have been undertaken intensively in each region. Here we analy...

Plant-microbe relationships play critical roles in the functioning and health of terrestrial plants, but little is known about this relationship in marine angiosperms such as seagrasses. Here, we investigated the microbial communities associated with the seagrass Enhalus acoroides throughout Singapore and Peninsular Malaysia. At each sampling locat...

Researchers often face challenges when collecting primary data, which may influence the degree to which they are able to achieve their research objectives. This chapter is based on the first author’s doctoral data collection experience when studying the impacts of tidal inundation on the Chattogram city coastal dwellers in Bangladesh, and their cop...

Freshwater is a major concern in arid and semi-arid regions of the West Bank due to political conditions where the Israeli occupation controls the groundwater resources and physical drivers such as land use/land cover (LULC) changes. The Nablus Mountains region receives between 175 and 739.1 mm of annual rainfall. Hence, direct runoff is high and u...

Morphometric parameters are the mathematical visualizations of watershed landforms that provide powerful insights into the hydrological processes that drive and shape a watershed. This is especially true for climatically variable regions with complex topographies such as in our study area in the Nablus Mountains. This study aimed to identify the mo...

Tropical seagrass meadows and coral reefs often function as interconnected marine habitats, but they are often studied and managed as homogenous units. As macrohabitats, seagrass meadows provide important benefits to adjacent reef ecosystems by acting as natural filters of sediments and nutrients, and by providing critical feeding, nursery, and ref...

Redang Islands Marine Park consists of nine islands in the state of Terengganu, Malaysia. Redang Island is one of the largest off the east coast of Peninsular Malaysia, which is famous for its crystal-clear waters and white sandy beaches. The ichthyofauna of the Redang archipelago was surveyed by underwater visual observations between August 2016 a...

Marine fungal biodiversity remains vastly understudied, and even less is known of their biogeography and the processes responsible for driving these distributions in marine environments. We investigated the fungal communities associated with the seagrass Enhalus acoroides collected from Singapore and Peninsular Malaysia to test the hypothesis that...

Seagrass meadows are highly productive habitats that support commercially and ecologically important fishes and invertebrates. However, evidence of fish-habitat relationships are seldom drawn from forereef seagrass meadows that are structurally simple in terms of species richness and relative size and, consequently, their role as habitats is unclea...

Southeast Asia has the highest diversity of seagrass species and habitat types, but basic information on seagrass habitats is still lacking. This review examines the known distribution, extent, species diversity, and research and knowledge gaps of seagrasses in Southeast Asia by biogeographic region of the Marine Ecoregions of the World (MEOW). The...

Globally, peptide-based anticancer therapies have drawn much attention. Marine organisms are a reservoir of anticancer peptides that awaits discovery. In this study, we aimed to identify cytotoxic oligopeptides from Sarcophyton glaucum. Peptides were purified from among the S. glaucum hydrolysates produced by alcalase, chymotrypsin, papain and tryp...

Resistance and side effects are common problems for anticancer drugs used in chemotherapy. Thus, continued research to discover novel and specific anticancer drugs is obligatory. Marine sponges hold great promise as a source of potent cytotoxic peptides with future applications in cancer treatments. This study aimed to purify and identify cytotoxic...

There are thirteen islands gazetted as Malaysian Marine Park Areas (MPAs) in Johor State waters. This report on the 8 non-MPA islands provide information for the consideration of the Johor State government in creating a larger and improved SIMP by adding either a subset or all of these areas surveyed. There are 4 objectives in this study, which are...

Purpose: To determine the antioxidant activity of methanol extract (ME) and solvent fractions of Avrainvillea erecta as well as their total phenolic and flavonoid contents. Methods: The antioxidant activities of ME as well as its chloroform, butanol, and aqueous fractions (CF, BF and WF, respectively) of A. erecta were evaluated via 2,2-diphenyl-1-...

Conservation efforts use scientific data to provide an adaptive framework wherein habitat and wildlife sustainability can co-exist with human activities. Good science informs decision-makers and facilitates the development of successful conservation approaches. However, conservation concerns for the dugong Dugong dugon in South-east Asia are suffic...

The objective of this article is to represent spatial patterns of seaweed distribution in Malaysia. Seaweeds have been collected since 1984 along coastlines of 4675 km of peninsular Malaysia, Sabah, and Sarawak. However, there is no seaweed database and they cannot be displayed in a geographic view. Therefore, a database with 805 georeferenced obse...

Seagrass surveys were conducted in the Sibu-Tinggi Group of Islands and the Sungai Johor meadows to identify meadows that are vital for dugong conservation. Field visits to the Sibu-Tinggi Islands were done from 11 to 14 April 2007, and from 25 – 27 November 2007 in the Sungai Johor Area. The first trip involved dive SCUBA surveys while the latter...

A preliminary checklist of marine algae from Pulau Jarak, Sembilan Group of Islands and Pulau Perak in the Straits of Malacca was compiled from two expeditions. The checklist of a total of 66 taxa, comprises one family of Cyanophyta with two genera and six taxa, seven families of Chlorophyta with 11 genera and 18 taxa, 12 families of Rhodophyta wit...

Biogeographically, Malaysia is included in the Indo-West Pacific tropical marine region, which harbours the highest diversity of coral reefs, seagrasses and mangroves. We hypothesize that the Malaysian coastline may be divided into smaller spatial units in the order of provinces and districts in order to better understand the distribution patterns...

Surveys were done for three sites in Johor (South East Coast of Johor, Sibu-Tinggi Group of Islands and Sg Johor) looking for dugongs and their vital seagrass beds. Numerous field visits were done from April to September 2005 using aerial, boat and questionnaire surveys. Dugongs were sighted during our aerial surveys in the Sibu-Tinggi Group of Isl...