
Kwek Yan ChongNational Parks Board · Singapore Botanic Gardens
Kwek Yan Chong
PhD
About
129
Publications
100,220
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Introduction
I am an ecologist with interests in vegetation ecology, urban ecology, plant invasion ecology, and the tropical Asian flora.
Additional affiliations
July 2021 - present
July 2021 - present
October 2015 - July 2021
Publications
Publications (129)
Elucidating the invasion history of non-native species has been dependent on coarse-grain and expensive methods or long-term monitoring during which the spread may have proceeded beyond feasible control. We used the case of a relatively recent introduction and spread of the neotropical Cecropia pachystachya in Singapore to develop a method for reco...
Question
How are plant communities in forests regenerating on post‐cultivation land structured along environmental gradients, landscape context and past land use? We investigated this for two types of post‐agricultural fates: plantations abandoned with trees intact (abandoned land forest) versus land that was cleared and left to regenerate into a f...
Questions
How do abiotic conditions, forest structure, as well as taxonomic and functional diversities and composition recover after wind‐generated treefalls? Do young and old‐growth secondary forests differ in their responses?
Location
Mandai region of the Central Catchment Nature Reserve, Singapore, where extensive treefalls occurred during an u...
Figs have been regarded as keystone plant resources that support diverse tropical vertebrate frugivore communities. Planting or conserving large fig trees, such as stranglers, have therefore been proposed for enhancing urban biodiversity. We compared the diversity and community structure of bird assemblages on strangler figs
with non-fig urban tree...
Actions and policies to enhance biodiversity in the urban landscape must match the spatial scale at which biodiversity responds to the management and target variables. To this end, we compare the importance and effect of different kinds of greenery cover and road-lane density on bird and butterfly species richness between two landscape scales: 50-m...
Societal Impact Statement
Long‐term phenology data is crucial to elucidate the effects of climate change on plants, but such efforts are lacking in the tropics. Historical records at the Singapore Botanic Gardens and ongoing phenological monitoring have allowed us to study leafing behaviour and its association with changing rainfall patterns over n...
Differences in demographic and environmental niches facilitate plant species coexistence in tropical forests. However, the adaptations that enable species to achieve higher demographic rates (e.g. growth or survival) or occupy unique environmental niches (e.g. waterlogged conditions) remain poorly understood. Anatomical traits may better predict pl...
Profiles of selected species of the Flora listed in the Singapore Red Data Book
Updated threat status for all native species of bryophytes, lycophytes, ferns, gymnosperms and flowering plants in Singapore.
Societal Impact Statement
Cities present a unique challenge for conservation. While overall native biodiversity is reduced, remnant habitats in the urban matrix can be important refugia for native and endemic species. This study reviews the rediscovery of 173 presumed nationally extinct plant taxa and discovery of 155 new native plant records, inc...
There is an urgent need for reliable data on the impacts of deforestation on tropical biodiversity. The city-state of Singapore has one of the most detailed biodiversity records in the tropics, dating back to the turn of the 19th century. In 1819, Singapore was almost entirely covered in primary forest, but this has since been largely cleared. We c...
This paper studies the survivability of peatland-related programs in Indonesia. Despite an increase in the global and national programs for peatland restoration, many of these programs fail to survive in the long-term. To understand this low survivability, this paper examines how peatland-related programs rearrange the relationship between the loca...
Abstract:
Phenophases, such as leafing, flowering, and fruiting, are primary factors in maintaining essential processes and biodiversity of a forest ecosystem. Tropical plants are more diverse in their environmental cues for reproduction and therefore also show larger variations in phenological patterns compared with those from higher latitudes. Cl...
We review the history of plot-based studies of forests in Singapore and their contribution to our understanding of tropical forest ecology, especially of the regenerative capabilities of forest remnants after fragmentation, land-use change, and other disturbances. With this, we describe the establishment of the Long-Term Forest Ecological Monitorin...
The Red List of Dipterocarpaceae is published, following the efforts of over 50 individuals, from at least 15 organizations, from across the global range of dipterocarps. For the first time, this report contains analysis of all 535 species of Dipterocarpaceae, their global conservation status and builds on national and regional red list publication...
Decomposition and fire are major carbon pathways in many ecosystems, yet potential linkages between these processes are poorly understood. We test whether variability in decomposability and flammability across species are related to each other and to key plant functional traits in tropical swamp forests, where habitat degradation is elevating decom...
Invasive plants are a growing ecological problem worldwide, but biases and patterns within invasive plant research may affect our understanding of invasive plant ecology. In this study, we analyzed 458 invasive plant papers sampled from the two journals dedicated entirely to the field of invasion biology, i.e., Biological Invasions and Neobiota. Fr...
Forest disturbances caused by extreme weather events such as severe windstorms are expected to become more
prevalent under global climate change. It is imperative that we understand how plant species respond to disturbance-
induced habitat changes to be able to predict if forest communities recover from catastrophic events. However, the impacts
of...
Perceptions of, and attitudes toward, wildlife are influenced by exposure to, and direct experiences with, nature. Butterflies are a conspicuous and ubiquitous component of urban nature across megacities that are highly urbanized with little opportunity for human–nature interactions. We evaluated public familiarity with, perceptions of and attitude...
Functional traits offer generalizability to the prediction of ecosystem processes such as production, and community-weighted mean trait values are increasingly used for such predictions. However, the underlying causal direction between traits and ecosystem processes are often indirect and sometimes even tenuous. In this study, we aimed to uncover u...
Degraded tropical peatlands lack tree cover and are often subject to seasonal flooding and repeated burning. These harsh environments for tree seedlings to survive and grow are therefore challenging to revegetate. Knowledge on species performance from previous plantings represents an important evidence base to help guide future tropical peat swamp...
The Phyllanthaceae are a diverse and speciose family of flowering trees, shrubs and climbers, many of which are native to the forests of tropical Asia. This paper is the seventh instalment of a continuing series on the tree species of the floristically diverse Nee Soon Swamp Forest (NSSF), Singapore's last substantial tract of intact freshwater swa...
This paper is the eighth instalment of the continuing series on the tree species of the floristically diverse Nee Soon Swamp Forest, Singapore's last substantial tract of intact freshwater swamp forest. Here, we provide a key and species descriptions based on characters observable in the field and from dried specimens for the 14 species of the five...
This is the sixth in a series of articles that aim to assist in the identification of the trees of the Nee Soon Swamp Forest, the last remaining substantial tract of freshwater swamp forest in Singapore. This paper provides a key and descriptions, based on characters easily observed in the field and from dried specimens, for the 11 native Calophyll...
A checklist of all species of bryophytes, lycophytes, ferns, gymnosperms and angiosperms that are found in the wild (native, naturalised and casual) in Singapore is presented. We have attempted to account for all names of species and infraspecific taxa that have ever been recorded for Singapore, along with the pertinent publications that reported e...
A checklist of all species of bryophytes, lycophytes, ferns, gymnosperms and angiosperms that are found in the wild (native, naturalised and casual) in Singapore is presented. We have attempted to account for all names of species and infraspecific taxa that have ever been recorded for Singapore, along with the pertinent publications that reported e...
The stress-gradient hypothesis (SGH) in ecology predicts that the strength and frequency of positive interspecific interactions, including processing chain commensalisms (PCCs), increase with environmental stress. Although observed in some empirical PCC studies, a recent theoretical study of PCCs using a consumer–resource-type model found that, giv...
Growth in individual size or biomass is a key demographic component in population models, with wide‐ranging applications from quantifying species performance across abiotic or biotic conditions to assessing landscape‐level dynamics under global change. In forest ecology, the responses of tree growth to biotic interactions are widely held to be cruc...
Most biological invasion literature—including syntheses and meta-analyses and the resulting theory—is reported from temperate regions, drawing only minimally from the tropics except for some island systems. The lack of attention to invasions in the tropics results from and reinforces the assumption that tropical ecosystems, and especially the conti...
Most biological invasion literature—including syntheses and meta-analyses and the resulting
theory—is reported from temperate regions, drawing only minimally from the tropics except for
some island systems. The lack of attention to invasions in the tropics results from and reinforces
the assumption that tropical ecosystems, and especially the conti...
Questions
What are the relative influences of soil and hydrology on tree community structure, seedling survival and seedling growth? Does soil and hydrology moderate seedling responses to competition?
Location
Nee Soon catchment, Singapore.
Methods
We measured and identified trees ≥ 5-cm diameter in 40 plots measuring 20 by 20 m each, set up in t...
View package website at https://ecological-cities.github.io/home2park/
Growth in individual size or biomass is a key demographic component in population models, with wide-ranging applications from quantifying species performance across abiotic or biotic conditions to assessing landscape-level dynamics under global change. In forest ecology, the responses of tree growth to biotic interactions are widely held to be cruc...
The climate mitigation potential of urban nature-based solutions (NBSs) is often perceived as insignificant and thus overlooked, as cities primarily pursue NBSs for local ecosystem services. Given the rising interest and capacities in cities for such projects, the potential of urban forests for climate mitigation needs to be better understood. We m...
Questions
How (de)coupled are native and exotic tree diversities in their relationships with local soil conditions and landscape configurations? Can (de)coupled diversity–environment relationships be used to manage native and exotic species separately to minimize unintended impacts on one another?
Location
The tropical city‐state of Singapore, So...
Acer laurinum Hassk. was recently recorded as both a new species and genus for Singapore from the Nee Soon swamp forest in the Central Catchment Nature Reserve, but little is known about its biology and ecology. Here, the species is described and notes on its distribution, ecology and proposed conservation status in Singapore are given.
Decomposition is a key ecosystem function, and the rate of decomposition in forests affects their carbon storage potentials. Processes and factors determining leaf litter decomposition rates in dry‐land and temperate forests are well understood, but these are generally poorly studied in tropical wetland forests, especially freshwater swamp forests...
As climate change continues to threaten human and natural systems, the search for cost-effective and practical mitigation solutions is gaining momentum. Reforestation has recently been identified as a promising nature-based climate solution. Yet there are context-dependent biophysical, financial, land-use and operational constraints to reforestatio...
Extinction is a key issue in the assessment of global biodiversity. However, many extinction rate measures do not account for species that went extinct before they could be discovered. The highly developed island city–state of Singapore has one of the best‐documented tropical floras in the world. This allowed us to estimate the total rate of floris...
Corrigendum for Towards a field guide to the trees of the Nee Soon Swamp Forest (V): Burseraceae
Understanding how functional traits moderate species’ demographic responses along environmental gradients is a core pursuit in ecology, often to predict how species abundances will respond to a rapidly changing environment. The latter necessitates species demography, or at least abundance, to be modelled directly as a response; yet, most studies ti...
The species, Calophyllum soulattri, is found to have been wrongly included in Singapore's native flora. The name Calophyllum wallichianum var. wallichianum is also found to have been misapplied to a taxon in Singapore and should rather be called Calophyllum rufigemmatum. The nomenclatural history and problems of both taxa are discussed in this pape...
Southeast (SE) Asia holds high regional biodiversity and endemism levels but is also one of the world's most threatened regions. Local, regional and global threats could have severe consequences for the future survival of many species and the provision of ecosystem services.
In the face of myriad pressing environmental problems, we carried out a r...
This paper is the fifth instalment of a continuing series on the tree species of the floristically diverse Nee Soon Swamp Forest, Singapore's last substantial tract of intact freshwater swamp forest. Here, we provide a field key and descriptions, based on characters easily observed in the field and from dried specimens, to the 13 species of the fou...
Premise of the Research. The aspartate protease, nepenthesin, is the primary constituent of pitcher fluids in the pitcher plant genus, Nepenthes, and is responsible for the hydrolysis of prey protein. Nepenthes pitchers are inhabited by many inquiline species such as microbes and dipteran larvae, which have been shown to facilitate nitrogen sequest...
The unique plant communities of the freshwater swamp forests of southern Johor (Malaysia) and Singapore attracted the attention of E.J.H. Corner, but there have been no comprehensive follow-up studies to his seminal work. Meanwhile, freshwater swamp forests in the region have been mostly lost to logging and in-filling for plantations or urban devel...
Carnivorous plants avoid below-ground competition for nitrogen by utilizing an alternative nitrogen resource—invertebrate prey, but it remains unclear if sympatric carnivorous plants compete for prey resources. The aim of this study was to investigate if exploitative prey-resource competition occurs between the two sympatric pitcher plant species,...
The invasive technique of increment coring may be unavoidable in forest ecology research requiring data
on wood traits. Despite this, no study has examined the effects of increment coring on tropical forest trees.
We cored 35 trees of 11 species from nine families, with wood densities ranging from 0.30 to 0.69 g cm-3, at
two sites in Singapore. Tre...
Ficus elastica, otherwise known as India Rubber (although its geographical origins are unclear), was an important source of latex in the early 19 th century and was widely cultivated in tropical Asia. Like all figs, F. elastica is dependent on tiny, highly specific wasps for pollination, and detailed studies based out of Singapore in the 1930s sugg...
The Sisters' Islands, consisting of Small Sister's Island and Big Sister's Island-officially known as Pulau Subar Darat and Pulau Subar Laut, respectively, support 144 vascular plant species from 59 families, of which 90 species are native, 34 are non-native, and 20 are cryptogenic weeds. The native species include 10 nationally Critically Endanger...
Pulau Tekukor has 151 vascular plant species from 61 families, of which 86 species are native, 44 are nonnative, and 21 are cryptogenic weeds. The native species include one presumed nationally Extinct species, 10 nationally Critically Endangered species, four nationally Endangered species, seven nationally Vulnerable species, 63 species that
are n...
St. John's Island, officially known as Pulau Sakijang Bendera, has 258 vascular plant species from 81 families, of which 154 species are native, 76 are non-native and 28 are cryptogenic weeds. The native species include 22 nationally Critically Endangered species, 15 nationally Endangered species, 20 nationally Vulnerable species, 96 species that a...
The fluid-containing traps of Nepenthes carnivorous pitcher plants (Nepenthaceae) are often inhabited by organisms known as inquilines. Dipteran larvae are key components of such communities and are thought to facilitate pitcher nitrogen sequestration by converting prey protein into inorganic nitrogen, although this has never been demonstrated in N...
Background: Seed production, germination, and seedling survival are crucial processes during community masting events in dipterocarp-dominated rain forest in South-east Asia.
Aims: We examine how these processes function in fragmented remnants of dipterocarp forest in Singapore.
Methods: Fruits were captured in seed traps and seed fates on the grou...