THE ANURANS OF SOUTHWESTERN BUNGO RANGE

Bau (Sarawak gold mining town) is located about 1 hour drive from Kuching, Sarawak and surrounded by beautiful limestone formations such as Fairy and Wind Caves. In 26th February 2009 Bau mountain ranges known as Bungo Range was gazetted as Nature Reserve with a size of 8.096 ha. The exact location of Bungo Range lies at 1° 16’ latitude and 110° 9’ longitude. It is one of the 400,000 hectares that will be included in the future of Heart of Borneo initiatives. The area is an important water catchment area, located upstream of Sg Sarawak and covers primary and secondary forests. Thus the study area is important for the documentation of biodiversity for future management and preservation

Short Communication New distribution record of Pelophryne api dring, 1983 (Anura: Bufonidae) from Sarawak, East Malaysia

Pelophryne api (Bufonidae), formerly only discovered at Mount Api, Mulu was recently found at the limestone of Bau, Kuching. Morphological observations of the two individuals of P. api discovered matched the original diagnosis description of the holotype species by Dring (1983). The habitats of the recently discovered individuals are closely similar to that of the holotype species as well, remarkably the leaves of low plants at limestone area. The recent collections of P. api leads to suggestion that this species may occur at other limestone areas in Borneo and further field survey at the Bornean limestone areas are needed

SHORT COMMUNICATION NEW DISTRIBUTION RECORD OF PELOPHRYNE API DRING, 1983 (ANURA: BUFONIDAE) FROM SARAWAK, EAST MALAYSIA

Pelophryne api (Bufonidae), formerly only discovered at Mount Api, Mulu was recently found at the limestone of Bau, Kuching. Morphological observations of the two individuals of P. api discovered matched the original diagnosis description of the holotype species by Dring (1983). The habitats of the recently discovered individuals are closely similar to that of the holotype species as well, remarkably the leaves of low plants at limestone area. The recent collections of P. api leads to suggestion that this species may occur at other limestone areas in Borneo and further field survey at the Bornean limestone areas are needed

A manual for amphibian field studies : Bako National Park, 3–4 September 2016

Amphibians are a group of animals that can live both in water and on land. Amphi means dual, bios refers to life, thus, amphibians in Greek means dual life. The tailed amphibians are salamamders and newts, while the more familiar tailless amphibians form a group of animals called the Anura. Members of the Anura include frogs and toad

SIGNIFICANT QUALITY OF FRAGMENTED FORESTS IN OIL PALM PLANTATIONS : LESSON FROM THE ASSEMBLAGE STRUCTURE OF FROGS (Amphibia: Anura)

Being known as a good environmental indicator, the anuran is an ideal animal model for investigating the quality of High Conservation Value (HCV) areas (fragmented forests) in maintaining or enhancing biodiversity values in an oil palm plantation. Using non-metric multidimensional scaling (NMDS) frogs from forest fragments and oil palm were investigated and compared, to identify species assemblages and guild. Our findings showed that species diversity differed significantly between High Corrections Values and the plantation areas. The High Corrections Values showed highest percentage of species endemism, and species of conservation importance in the areas. The NMDS analysis futher suggests that the anuran assemblages at the oil palm plantation were disjunctive as the HCV areas provide isolated assemblages to the anuran species, different from that of the plantations. The number of species was found to be significantly influenced by water temperature, turbidity, salinity, and level of dissolved oxygen. Overall, the HCV areas supports high species diversity, including endemic and near threatened species compared to the plantation areas. Hence, these HCV areas are functioning and should be maintained as high priority areas for faunal conservation in an oil palm plantatio

Phylogenetic Relationships Of The Sarawak Microhyla (Amphibia: Anura: Microhylidae)

Microhylidae was the one the families of anuran that can be found in Sarawak. The genus Microhyla (M. borneensis, M. berdmorei, M. malang, M. nepenthicola, M petrigena and M. perpava) were used in this study because of their poor understanding in the phylogenetic study. The samples were collected from four study areas which were Kubah National Park, Matang Wildlife Centre, Gunung Gading National Park and Gunung Santubong. The species and the outgroup species was collected using the forest transect and stream transects and the tissues were extracted for molecular study. The 16S ribosomal RNA gene was used to infer the phylogenetic relationships of the genus Microhyla through the Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR). A total of 927 base pairs of 16S rRNA from 11 samples were analysed using Molecular Evolutionary Genetic Analysis 5.0 (MEGA 5.0). Then, the phylogenetic trees were constructed using Maximum Parsimony (MP), Neighbour Joining (NJ) and Maximum- Likehood (ML) and the genetic distances was calculated by using Kimura 2- parameter. All trees produced similar tree phylogram showed that the genus was monophyletic to the outgroup. It also proven that the 16S rRNA gene was useful as genetic marker for the phylogenetic study within then genus level

Molecular Ecology of the Sarawak Microhyla (Amphibian: Anura: Microhylidae)

Genus Microhyla in Sarawak that populate the primary lowland forest are intolerant to habitat destruction. Habitat disturbance that cause a drop in the number of frog species. The forest had been open for logging, agriculture, converted to the oil palm plantation and human settlements. The species listed under genus Microhyla was a Microhyla berdmorei, Microhyla borneensis, Microhyla malang, Microhyla perpava and Microhyla petrigena. The species of the Sarawak Microhyla have a complex taxonomy and causes the misidentified among researchers. Not only that, because of their small body size, they always not be found, and their habitat have been disturbed. The aims of this study are i) to infer the phylogenetic relationships among genus Microhyla in Sarawak based on the mitochondrial DNA, ii) to define the habitat preferences of Microhyla and iii) to infer the genetic variation among populations M. borneensis using the Cytochrome oxidase I (COI). Total of 26 individuals of Microhyla was collected through visual encounter surveys from nine study sites. The tissues were extracted from thigh muscles and proceed to polymerase chain reaction using 16 small ribosomal RNA (16SrRNA) and Cytochrome b (Cyt b). Then, the phylogram was constructed using PAUP. From the results, 26 samples and only 18 individuals was succesfully amplified for 16SrRNA for Cyt b respectively. The phylogram produced for both genes showed that, M. malang and M. borneensis was paraphylectic while M. petrigena and M. perpava was monophylectic with high bootstrap support. There were two clades that can be recovered, based on their morphological traits; namely, Clade A (M. malang, M. borneensis and M. nepenthicola), and Clade B (M. petrigena and M. perpava). Clade A shows a species complex comprising three species as their morphologically mimics each other. The ecology data for each individual was recorded during the sampling time. Then, to test the species association with habitat preferences, all the data was analyzed by using Multivariate Statistical Package (MVSP), t-test and Principle Component Analysis (PCA). The result of habitat and microhabitat character showed that the variables used could discriminate the frog species. Out of 63 variables, only 14 variables have been utilised by Sarawak Microhyla with the dominant resource namely, heath forest, distant from a water body, resting on seedlings and herbaceous plant and surface of the leaf. M. nepenthicola and M. borneensis found on perching on a leaf or on the forest floor for their substrates, M. malang and M. perpava were at the permanent pond, M. petrigena was found inhabiting the edge MDF. Next, the population genetics of the M. borneensis was inferred using 465 base pairs (bp) of the Cytochrome oxidase I (COI) gene. The findings showed that the M. borneensis populations were separated into two haplogroups, namely Haplogroup 1 (containing KNP and MWC) and Haplogroup 2 (BNP, STB, DKNP and GNP). The occurrence of two haplogroups ware address to unclear status of M. borneensis. Low genetic divergence detected between the haplogroup supports their taxonomic status as they cause from the same species. The KNP population was said to undergo bottleneck effect while the other population do not undergo bottleneck effect. As a conclusion, molecular studies based on 16SrRNA, and Cyt b and COI is a good marker to infer the genetic variation of Sarawak Microhyla and showed M. borneensis is in panmixia. Further studies are required based on larger populations’ size, more individual per population and more variable markers to validate the findings. Keywords: Microhyla, habitat, COI, genetic, Cyt

Frog Assemblage

About half of Bornean amphibians are endemic to the island, being restricted to specific habitats, from lowland dipterocarps to submontane forests. They tend to be sensitive to their environment and water quality in particular and thus, can serve as good environmental indicators. Negative changes in water quality are known to cause a higher rate of tadpole fatality and deformation. Berry et al. (2010) revealed that logging has adversely affected amphibian abundance. Thus, the anuran is an ideal indicator of ecosystem health. Many large plantations have set up High Conservation Value (HCV) areas to provide a network of wildlife refuges that may have once inhabited pristine and undisturbed forests, complying with international code of conduct for such plantations. The HCV forest thus functions to maintain or enhance biodiversity values within homogenous vegetation. The impact of rainforest degradation due to its conversion to oil palm plantations on amphibians is relatively unknown. Additionally, information on anuran communities in oil palm plantations is still limited to a few studies to date (Gillespie et al., 2012; Faruk et al., 2013; Norhayati et al., 2014; Zainudin et al., 2019). Faruk et al. (2013) found that anuran communities in plantations consisted of species that thrive in disturbed areas. Furthermore, Harrison and Bruna (1999) stated that fragmented habitats cannot simply represent the original habitat and that their biotas may be altered to a great extent, thus assuming that conserving small remnant areas will not guarantee species conservation. Anurans are susceptible to habitat change, thus, their community ecology would be potentially affected if natural habitats are modified and / or altered by human disturbances. With previous findings as well as the sensitivity of the anurans, it is important to assess the connectivity of the frog assemblages at HCV areas. The assemblages structure of anurans along the established HCV areas at Bukit Durang, Wilmar Plantations were documented in this chapter. It will provide insight into the function of HCV areas for the conservation of biodiversity maintenance in large oil palm plantations