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ISSUE 7, DECEMBER 2013 & JANUARY 2014
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News
A VISIT FROM THE NERC CONSORTIA
 
January saw a visit from NERC VIPs. This year will be very busy with NERC funded pHd’s and researchers and the consortia were out at the SAFE and Maliau sites to assess the various plots and general camp conditions. It was a busy week and was great to host such an esteemed group of academics. The Borneo jungle didn’t disappoint either with torrential rainfall creating an air of adventure and accomplishment after each foray into the plots, not to mention the odd leech or two. For more on NERC click here
 
THE TREE HUGGERS ARE BACK
 
Mendel University's Dr Martin Svátek is back again with two crack teams of students from the Czech Republic to make fine-scale spatial maps of our plots in both B and E block and starting out in LFE .  They were hard at it all day every day tagging, measuring and recording exact coordinates of every live and standing dead woody plant with a d.b.h. of over 1cm using laser Field-Map technology, analyzing light conditions using hemispherical photographs and taking leaf specimens. This is a long term experiment (20 years plus) & the Digital Model Terrain (D.M.T) they will create will help them study forest dynamics, growth rates and species distribution over the whole fragmentation process at SAFE. For more on the project click here
 
ARKITREK

Things are moving along in leaps and bounds on the Lab front with the long awaited delivery of our new lorry. The support posts are finally in and the new building which will eventually be our lab/library is starting to take shape. The site will have internet access, a wet and dry lab & even air-conditioning so fingers crosses for the June deadline.
 

ARKITREK VOLUNTEER PROFILE


Simon Feather from Beverley, East Yorkshire graduated with a degree in Architecture from Northumbria University. He has been working at the SAFE project as an Architectural Intern for the company Arkitrek. If you can get Simon away from the hammocks then to occupy himself during the lonely afternoons Simon is creating a jungle gym at the top of the hill for any future fitness freaks who visit the camp. His particular interest is in acrylic painting; during his time here with the help of the scientists he has been researching a new topic for a series of paintings he is calling ‘cracks in the world’. The first to be completed tackles problems raised during deforestation. Simon is 7 months into his year living at SAFE and the buildings he has worked on include the Powerhouse, Laboratories and Library. His interests in architecture evolved around creating eco-friendly buildings by using natural materials, therefore helping design SAFE’s field centre is a great place for him to develop his interests further.


 

Resident Researchers
JOSH TWINING
 
J Drizzle hailing from Milton Keynes, UK is a graduate animal biologist (Bsc Hons) at University of Birmingham and has been working with Operation Wallacea in Sulawesi, Indonesia as a Herpetologist (Researching Reptile and Amphibians) for the past few years. He is now at SAFE as a researcher to investigate the ecology of giant reptiles in altered forest ecosystems. He is also performing walking transects and nocturnal scans to produce a species guide for ‘herps’ in the SAFE area.
 Varanids aka monitor lizards are his particular passion & that is what he is currently putting his efforts into at SAFE- his work involves trapping and tagging individuals to estimate abundance using mark-recapture methodology, taking morphometric measurements and analyzing population make up to comment on population dynamics and phenotypic trends as well as stomach lavaging (inducing vomiting) to gather information on dietary composition. Josh will be on site preliminarily for four months and is keen to come back to SAFE for further research for his masters later on in the year.
TAKESHI INAGAWA

Takeshi Inagawa from Tokyo, Japan has been studying forest ecology at Oxford University PhD and is now at SAFE to research nutrient cycling of altered forest ecosystems. His research is at five of Tehri Riutta intensive carbon plots – carbon tower plot, B south, B north, E 1 hectare and LF. He is collecting tree stems, bark, fresh leaves, twigs, coarse roots, fine roots, leaf litter and coarse woody debris from 5 species of tree and 3 replicates in each plot. These are air dried and will be brought to the forest research centre in Sepilok for chemical analysis – the main aim of research is to determine nutrient allocation of nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium, magnesium and calcium to the previous components. Takeshi will also be sampling in Maliau basin and Lambir hills, Sarawak. I would love to provide you with a link but this is pioneer research and very little previous study has been done in this area in tropical rainforest.

SAFE Project Research Assistants

Mohamed Juhanis (Mamat) and Mohamed Yusuf Didin (Roy)

Mamat is from Bukit Garam in the Kinabatangan region of Sabah. Before working at SAFE he was with INVAPRO at Danum Valley planting trees for four years. Mamat has been with SAFE for two years now and for the majority of that time he has been working with Timm Dopert on his vegetation dynamics pHd, camping and taking long hikes into the jungle to collect plant and soil specimens. When he isn’t working with Timm he is a member of SAFEs carbon team. Mamat’s wifes name is Fatimah and their two sons are Rafiel and Mohamed. As usual for the guys at SAFE Mamat has a particular passion for the afternoon football matches and a general interest in sports but he also rarely misses the chance to join on a night drive or walk.
 

Roy who works with Timm alongside Mamat shares an almost identical staff profile. They were both practically neighbours in Bukit Garam growing up and both worked together in Danum with INVAPRO. Roy starting work in Danum in July 2003. Roy has been with SAFE now for three years and has spent this time like Mamat working mainly with Timm on his vegetation dynamics pHd. When he isn’t working with Timm, Roy is helping with SAFEs vegetation plots and Roy has a particular interest in trees. Apart from the now quite obvious pattern of sports interest Roy also loves reading books.
 

Species profiles


CRESTED GREEN LIZARD

Bronchocela cristatella  is a common tree lizard in parks and gardens all over Borneo as well as lowland and lower montane forests being widespread up to 1700 mtrs. elevation. Diurnal and arboreal it is capable of making short glides, and is found on shrubs, tree trunks, fences and walls as well as bush camp kitchens. SAFEs kitchen being often visited by this species, individuals of which wonder around in search of sustenance completely oblivious to human presence but when alarmed are capable of completely  disappearing into the surrounding undergrowth faster than you can say “Quick get your camera!”. This beautiful lizard is distributed from Southern Myanmar, Thailand, the Nicobar Archipelago, the Malay Peninsular, Sumatra, Borneo, Java, the Lesser Sundas, Makulu and the Phillipines.
 

 

 


 

LONG-TAILED PORCUPINE
 

Trichys fasciculate gives the overall impression of being a large rat and indeed looks more like a rat than its more porcupine like relatives. Its spines are short and flattened, dark brown at the ends and whitish at the base. It’s tail is brown and scaly, with a brush of hollow bristles at the end and literature indicates that part or all of the tail is sometimes missing although the specimen in our newsletter that was spotted down by our river on a night walk by J Drizzle was in possession of a full and healthy tail and it’s absence from the photograph is a composition oversight. Top job for spotting it though as this creature is considered uncommon and is rarely observed, although almost always observed in pairs, as was this little guy.

 
 
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