About
35
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Introduction
My research areas lie in the intersection of plant, invertebrate, functional and urban ecology in the tropics. My current projects revolve around leaf litter, soil, and the microbes and invertebrates living in them. I am interested in how basic ecosystem processes/elements (e.g., consumer traits, resource input/loss/consumption rates) predict ecosystem processes (especially nutrient cycling and sequestration) through functional and demographic processes.
Current institution
Additional affiliations
September 2021 - present
August 2019 - August 2021
Position
- PostDoc Position
Description
- Responses of ecosystem processes and tree communities to hydrological changes in the Nee Soon freshwater swamp forest
Education
August 2015 - August 2019
August 2011 - July 2015
Publications
Publications (35)
Albizia (Falcataria falcata) is an invasive legume species in many tropical countries. In Southeast Asia, albizia often forms monodominant canopies in urban forests, with other non-native tree species in the subcanopy. Such exotic species-dominated forests (EFs) are commonly found in urban areas, representing an alternative stable state that has ar...
Albizia (Falcataria falcata) is an invasive legume species in many tropical countries. In Southeast Asia, albizia often forms monodominant canopies in urban forests, with other non-native tree species in the subcanopy. Such invasive species-dominated forests (IFs) are commonly found in urban areas, and represent an alternate stable state and succes...
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...
Nutrient cycling through leaf litter consumption is an essential ecological function performed by macrodetritivorous invertebrates such as isopods and millipedes. Leaf litter consumption rates can vary greatly depending on the environment, consumer identity and litter traits, but generalizations about the effects of plant traits on macrodetritivore...
Springtails (Collembola) inhabit soils from the Arctic to the Antarctic and comprise an estimated ~32% of all terrestrial arthropods on Earth. Here, we present a global, spatially-explicit database on springtail communities that includes 249,912 occurrences from 44,999 samples and 2,990 sites. These data are mainly raw sample-level records at the s...
Functional trait ecology has the potential to provide generalizable and mechanistic predictions of ecosystem function from data of species distributions and traits. The traits that are selected should both respond to environmental factors and influence ecosystem functioning. Invertebrate mouthpart traits fulfill these criteria, but are seldom colle...
Functional trait ecology has the potential to provide generalizable and mechanistic predictions of ecosystem function from data of species distributions and traits. The traits that are selected should both respond to environmental factors and influence ecosystem functioning. Invertebrate mouthpart traits fulfil these criteria, but are seldom collec...
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...
Tropical pitcher plants (Nepenthes) are carnivorous plants that trap and digest prey using highly modified fluid-filled leaves known as pitchers. Prey are digested by plant-secreted enzymes and pitcher symbionts. Pitchers exert control over abiotic properties of the digestive fluid such as pH levels that can influence its symbionts. Here we examine...
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...
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...
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...
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.
The Raffles' pitcher plant (Nepenthes rafflesiana Jack, Nepenthaceae) is a carnivorous plant found naturally across multiple habitat types both within and outside of the Central Catchment Nature Reserve (CCNR)-the largest contiguous forested habitat in Singapore. Nepenthes rafflesiana produces lower and upper pitchers during distinct ontogenetic st...
Using black soldier fly (Hermetia illucens [L.], Diptera: Stratiomyidae) larvae (BSFL) to upcycle urban solid waste into a growing medium for vegetable cultivation is a potential solution to ease cities’ over-reliance on food imports and excessive waste generation. However, rapid composting by BSFL may be insufficient to remove phytotoxins from the...
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...
The only Caryota species native to Singapore, C. mitis is an important ecological resource for a diversity of fauna. However, little is known about the autecology of this charismatic, commonly cultivated palm. This is the first study that focuses on the autecology of C. mitis in Singapore, investigating the following ecological attributes: (1) thei...
The modified-leaf pitchers of Nepenthes rafflesiana pitcher plants are aquatic, allochthonous ecosystems that are inhabited by specialist inquilines and sustained by the input of invertebrate prey. Detritivorous inquilines are known to increase the nutrient-cycling efficiency (NCE) of pitchers but it is unclear whether predatory inquilines that pre...
The contents of 147 pitchers from the pitcher plant Nepenthes ampullaria were sampled from three sites across Singapore. The primary aim of the study was to compile a comprehensive checklist of the inquiline species inhabiting Nepenthes ampullaria pitchers across the key Nepenthes habitat types in Singapore, with the secondary aims of compiling a p...
Positive species interactions are ubiquitous in natural communities, but the mechanisms through which they operate are poorly understood. One proposed mechanism is resource conversion – the conversion by a benefactor species of a resource from a resource state that is inaccessible to a potential beneficiary species into a resource state that is acc...
Pitcher plants of the genus Nepenthes trap and digest invertebrate prey to supplement their nutrient requirements using fluid‐containing, modified leaves known as ‘pitchers’. Pitchers are habitats to many aquatic metazoan and microbial species known as ‘inquilines’. Mites (Histiostomatidae) are a common but poorly studied inquiline taxon – little i...
The stress-gradient hypothesis (SGH) predicts that the strength and frequency of facilitative interactions increase monotonically with increasing environmental stress, but some empirical studies have found this decrease at extreme stress levels, suggesting a hump-shaped SGH instead. However, empirical studies of the SGH are often hindered by confou...
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...
Nutritional mutualisms are one of the three major categories of mutualisms and involve the provision of limiting nutrients (resources) to one species by another. It was recently shown in laboratory experiments that two species of pitcher‐dwelling crab spiders (Thomisidae), Thomisus nepenthiphilus and Misumenops nepenthicola, increased capture rates...
Positive species interactions are ubiquitous and crucial components of communities, but they are still not well incorporated into established ecological theories. The definitions of facilitation and mutualism overlap, and both are often context dependent. Many interactions that are facilitative under stressful conditions become competitive under mo...
Positive species interactions tend to be context dependent. However, it is difficult to predict how benefit in a mutualism changes in response to changing contexts. Nepenthes pitcher plants trap animal prey using leaf pitfall traps known as pitchers. Many specialized inquiline organisms inhibit these pitchers, and are known to facilitate the digest...
Background: According to modern coexistence theory, ecologically similar species can coexist if fitness differences between them are small, or niche differences between them are large. However, these predictions have not been tested extensively in real systems and are difficult to examine in traits-based studies.
Aims: The aim of our study was by u...
Positive species interactions are ubiquitous in natural communities. However, positive species interactions are often overlooked or undetected because they tend to be more context dependent—that is, outcomes of interactions may change from positive to neutral/negative, depending on the ecological contexts in which these take place. It was recently...
The fluids of Nepenthes pitcher plants are habitats to many specialised animals known as inquilines, which facilitate the conversion of prey protein into pitcher-absorbable nitrogen forms such as ammonium. Xenoplatyura beaveri (Diptera: Mycetophilidae) is a predatory dipteran inquiline that inhabits the pitchers of N. ampullaria. Larvae of X. beave...
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 cost–benefit model of plant carnivory posits that benefits of carnivory exceed its costs only in environments where light and moisture levels are high, while soil nutrient levels are low. Carnivorous investment is a plastic trait that can be regulated by individual plants. The literature provides strong support for nutrient-dependent plasticity...
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...
