Giant Shorea at Gunung Palung National Park, Indonesian Borneo
Malesian plant evolutionary biology
Spanning several countries from southern Thailand to Papua New Guinea, the tropical Malesian region is the most species rich part of Asia, and its unique organisms and complicated biogeography have long fascinated biologists. The Arnold Arboretum’s activites in the region began with seminal work in the Philippines by Elmer Drew Merrill, director from 1935 to 1946. As the crisis of tropical forest loss continues to escalate, recent research by Arboretum scientists in Malesia utilizes the latest tools to investigate questions of plant biodiversity distribution and survival.
Ecology, biogeography, and biodiversity informatics of Indonesian trees
NSF-funded research (DEB 1020868) “Biogeographic and ecological diversification of trees across the Indonesian archipelago: developing indigenous leadership in biodiversity informatics; Principal investigators: Campbell O. Webb and Sarah Mathews.
The Indonesian archipelago contains forests with some of the highest local plant diversity on Earth, resulting from a complex geological and environmental history. Timber harvesting and oil palm expansion have drastically reduced the area of lowland forests, threatening this diversity before it has been discovered and understood. This project will pioneer new methods for recording tree species composition and environmental variables on five islands (Borneo, Sulawesi, New Guinea, Seram, and Sumbawa), using local students and park rangers as para-taxonomists, extensive digital photography, and DNA-barcoding technology, all integrated into a ‘live’ biodiversity informatics platform. Collected data will shed light on the historical processes by which the forests were assembled, providing a greater understanding of how forests will respond to future environmental changes.
Currently, most Indonesian biodiversity is managed by foreign institutions. In today’s world of expanded access to shared information, the megadiversity countries should lead the collection, digitization, and networking of their own biodiversity information; this is the only realistic, sustainable solution to documenting biodiversity while it still exists. This project will develop capacity and leadership in biodiversity informatics in Indonesia, as well as in the US, via joint field expeditions, meetings, short courses and sustained interactions with local software developers. The informatics resources will help foresters and conservationists to better know and manage these forests.
For more information and access to biodiversity informatics resources, please visit the project website. Field activities are also covered live in an Arnold Arboretum blog.
New Guinea plant discovery and biogeography
Hill forest on Waigeo island, Papua, Indonesia
Based in Papua New Guinea, research scientist Wayne Takeuchi has worked with the Arnold Arboretum for more than a decade. Funded in part by a National Science Foundation grant, he has collected extensively in both PNG and Indonesian Papua, discovering many new species and providing many herbarium specimens. He has trained many PNG parataxonomists, contributing significantly to the development of PNG botanical science. Example publications include:
- Takeuchi, W. 2011. Additional notes on Psychotria (Rubiaceae) from the southern karst of Papua New Guinea: P. defretesiana comb. et stat. nov., P. dieniensis var. banakii var. nov., and P. stevedarwiniana sp. nov. Phytotaxa 24: 19–27.
- Takeuchi, W. 2010. A New Addition to the Endemic Genus Fittingia (Myrsinaceae) of New Guinea: F. Headsiana from the Southern Limestone, with a Synoptical Key to the Species. Harvard Papers in Botany 15(1): 37-40. (Abstract)
- Takeuchi, W and Arifiani, D. 2010. A Synopsis of New Plant Distributional Records from the Foja Mountains of Papua Province, Indonesia. Harvard Papers in Botany 15(1): 41-50. (Abstract)
- Takeuchi, W. 2010. A Floristic Reconnaissance of Montane Environments in the Foja Mts. of Papua Province, Indonesia. Harvard Papers in Botany 15(1): 11-25. (Abstract)
See Wayne’s Arnold Arboretum herbarium collections, or collections with images in JSTOR Plants.