Wilfredo Uy

Institute of Fisheries Research and Development · Mindanao State University at Naawan

Many marine species have a pelagic larval phase that undergo dispersal among habitats. Studies on marine larval dispersal have revealed a large variation in the spatial scale of dispersal, and accumulated evidence has shown that seascape patchiness is the major determinant for variation in self-recruitment. However, few studies have investigated th...

The structure of food webs and carbon flow in aquatic ecosystems can be better understood by studying contributing factors such as the diets of herbivorous fish. Metabarcoding using a high-throughput sequencer has recently been used to clarify prey organisms of various fish except herbivorous fish. Since sequences of predator fish have dominated in...

The Philippines is a "hotspot" for sea cucumbers in Asia, where decades of lack of management led to declining fisheries and biodiversity. Sea cucumbers have been widely gathered in Mindanao; however, only a few studies provide updates on sea cucumber diversity and abundance. To supplement this scant information, a survey was conducted in the eight...

Aquaculture of the tropical sea cucumber Holothuria scabra or sandfish is still at a developing stage, especially in the Philippines. In Mindanao, early juveniles of sandfish were successfully produced at the Mindanao State University at Naawan (MSUN) sandfish hatchery for 5 yr now. However, on-site growing of these early juveniles in ocean nurseri...

The agricultural crops of Misamis Occidental are not exempted from the effects of climate change, hence, it is necessary to assess and map-out the key crop commodities in terms of their suitability in the future. Five major crops from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) and from the Department of Agriculture (DA) were identified and validated...

There is increasing empirical evidence of the shifting range distributions of tropical reef fishes as a response to persistent climatic warming. However, the link between the observed disparity of closely related species’ occurrence in temperate waters and their trait-based responses to winter thermal conditions is unclear. This study focuses on co...

The brown seaweed Sargassum spp., locally known as “samò,” is subject to increasing overexploitation in the natural environment; thus, culturing the species for mass production is necessary. Understanding the required environmental factors is essential in the successful culture and mass production of this species. This study aims to determine the e...

Hatchery production of the tropical sea cucumber Holothuria scabra or sandfish has been successfully demonstrated in various countries, especially during the past decade. However, the main bottleneck in up-scaling production of larger sandfish juveniles is in the nursery phase where land-based facilities are limited in the Philippines compared to o...

Tropical intertidal seagrass beds have recently been identified as foraging grounds for multiple fish species, although the possible drivers of fish migration to such beds remain unknown. Investigations of fishes occurring in intertidal and subtidal seagrass beds, and comparison of food resources of the dominant trophic groups in the intertidal and...

Intertidal seagrass beds occur throughout the tropical Indo-Pacific region and several studies have shown that small fishes inhabit them when inundated during the tidal regime. However, there is a lack of evidence regarding the trophic importance of these habitats to different fish populations at such times. In this study, we examined the feeding b...

The Philippines has lost nearly 70% of its natural mangrove cover since the early 1900s. As a result, large investments have been made to restore mangrove forests and the many ecosystem services that they provide. Most of these restoration efforts have been through outplanting of Rhizophora sp. seedlings, many of which have failed because the prope...

The establishment of marine protected areas (MPAs) can often lead to environmental differences between MPAs and fishing zones. To determine the effects on marine dispersal of environmental dissimilarity between an MPA and fishing zone, we examined the abundance and recruitment patterns of two anemonefishes (Amphiprion fre-natus and A. perideraion)...

A passive acoustic telemetry survey was conducted to determine occurrence patterns of commercially important fishes on a steep reef slope along a marine protected area (MPA) in the southern Philippines, where the outer reef edge is often set as an offshore MPA boundary. Based on 4–61 days of tracking data from 21 detected individuals of five specie...

Cymodocea rotundata is an ecologically important tropical pioneer seagrass species distributed in the Indo-Pacific region. The population genetic diversity and structure of this species were analysed at 46 sites spanning the Philippines, Ryukyu Islands (northern limit) and Hainan Island, by using microsatellite simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers....

The diel habitat-use patterns of commercially important fishes in a small marine protected area (MPA) (0.31 km2) containing coral reef and seagrass habitats were examined by passive acoustic telemetry during 2011 and 2012. The occurrence patterns of the target fishes both inside and outside the MPA were also observed. Thirty individuals from 6 spec...

Persistence of populations at their distributional ranges relies on local population dynamics and the fitness of species with low dispersal potential. We analyzed the population genetic diversity and structure of a tropical seagrass species, Cymodocea serrulata, at 34 sites spanning Philippine (diversity hotspot) and Ryukyu Islands (northern limit...

Recently, seagrasses have been declining along coastlines worldwide. We genetically analyzed 1058 ramets of Syringodium isoetifolium collected from 21 populations in the Philippines and 9 in the Ryukyu Islands using nine microsatellite markers, to provide a baseline of genetic information on seagrasses in the western North Pacific region under the...

Information on genetic diversity and differentiation of seagrass populations is essential for the conservation of coastal ecosystems. However, little is known about the seagrasses in the Indo-West Pacific Ocean, where the world's highest diversity of seagrasses occurs. The influence of sea currents on these populations is also unknown. We estimated...

Cymodocea serrulata is a tropical seagrass species distributed widely in the Indo-Pacific region. We developed 16 novel microsatellite (simple sequence repeat) markers for C. serrulata using next-generation sequencing for use in genetic studies. The applicability of these markers was attested by genotyping of 40 individuals collected from a natural...

Genetic diversity and population genetic structure are key components of seagrass resilience and contribute to an understanding of its conservation and management. We isolated 29 polymorphic microsatellite (SSR) markers from a widely distributed pioneer seagrass, Cymodocea rotundata, by two methods; next generation sequencing and compound SSR marke...

Nine microsatellite markers of a tropical seagrass species, Syringodium isoetifolium, were developed to investigate genetic diversity and genetic connectivity. The number of alleles detected per locus ranged from two to 16, and the observed and expected heterozygosities ranged from 0.00 to 1.00 and 0.12 to 0.91, respectively. The markers described...

Understanding the interconnectivity of organisms among different habitats is a key requirement for generating effective management plans in coastal ecosystems, particularly when determining component habitat structures in marine protected areas. To elucidate the patterns of habitat use by fishes among coral, seagrass, and mangrove habitats, and bet...

Total number of individuals and size range of 265 species in three habitats at two study sites during the study period. PG, LD, and TL indicate Puerto Galera, Laguindingan, and total length, respectively. (XLSX)

The steady decline of reef productivity accompanied by increasing observations of infectious coral diseases and disease outbreaks emphasize the need to mitigate the effect of coral diseases within reef communities. This paper examined the hypothesis that inside MPAs coral disease are less prevalent than outside. While coral disease remains an elusi...

Nine microsatellite markers of a widely-distributed seagrass, Thalassia hemprichii, were developed to investigate genetic diversity and genetic connectivity. The number of alleles detected per locus ranged from 3 to 26, and the expected and observed heterozygosities ranged from 0.00 to 1.00 and 0.00 to 0.87, respectively. The markers described here...

We analyzed 15-month data on seagrass species composition, % cover, shoot density, biomass and leaf growth rates from four 50 x 50 m quadrats established along a 5-km gradient in nutrients, chlorophyll-a, and siltation in Bolinao, northwestern Philippines. The gradient results from the extensive mariculture (Chanos chanos) activities in the area, w...

Using the dual-suppression polymerase chain reaction technique, 12 novel polymorphic nuclear microsatellite DNA markers were isolated from the tropical seagrass Enhalus acoroides. The isolated markers provided the polymorphisms of 2-13 alleles per locus in 3 populations located in Japan, China, and the Philippines. The values of the expected hetero...

Enhanced eutrophication as well as siltation are important environmental issues in Southeast Asian coastal waters. Both lead to increased turbidity and hence to lower light availability for the originally extensive seagrass beds that fringe most of the Philippine coastlines. Consequent large-scale declines of seagrass beds have been reported from a...

This ongoing research deals with the distribution and abundance of giant mantis shrimp, Lysiosquilla maculata , in Polo Pt., Plaridel, Misamis Occidental, and Sitangkai Tawi-Tawi Islands, Philippines. A comparative survey gave a clumped or aggregated type of distribution for both stations at a density of 3.56 shrimp/ha and 4.2 shrimp/ha, respective...