Imperial College London
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ProfessorRobertEwers

Faculty of Natural Sciences, Department of Life Sciences (Silwood Park)

Professor of Ecology
 
 
 
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Contact

 

+44 (0)20 7594 2223r.ewers

 
 
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Location

 

1.4Centre for Population BiologySilwood Park

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Summary

 

Publications

Citation

BibTex format

@article{Wilkinson:2018:10.1016/j.biocon.2018.04.004,
author = {Wilkinson, CL and Yeo, DCJ and Hui, TH and Fikri, AH and Ewers, RM},
doi = {10.1016/j.biocon.2018.04.004},
journal = {Biological Conservation},
pages = {164--171},
title = {Land-use change is associated with a significant loss of freshwater fish species and functional richness in Sabah, Malaysia},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2018.04.004},
volume = {222},
year = {2018}
}
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RIS format (EndNote, RefMan)

TY  - JOUR
AB  - Global biodiversity is being lost due to extensive anthropogenic land cover change. In Southeast Asia, biodiversity-rich forests are being extensively logged and converted to oil-palm monocultures. The impacts of this land-use change on freshwater ecosystems, and particularly on freshwater biodiversity, remain largely understudied and poorly understood. We assessed the differences between fish communities in headwater stream catchments across an established land-use gradient in Sabah, Malaysia (protected forest areas, twice-logged forest, salvage-logged forest, oil-palm plantations with riparian reserves, and oil-palm plantations without riparian reserves). Stream fishes were sampled using an electrofisher, a cast net and a tray net in 100m long transects in 23 streams in 2017. Local species richness and functional richness were both significantly reduced with any land-use change from protected forest areas, but further increases in land-use intensity had no subsequent impacts on fish biomass, functional evenness, and functional divergence. Any form of logging or land-use change had a clear and negative impact on fish communities, but the magnitude of that effect was not influenced by logging severity or time since logging on any fish community metric, suggesting that just two rounds of selective impact (i.e., logging) appeared sufficient to cause negative effects on freshwater ecosystems. It is therefore essential to continue protecting primary forested areas to maintain freshwater diversity, as well as to explore strategies to protect freshwater ecosystems during logging, deforestation, and conversion to plantation monocultures that are expected to continue across Southeast Asia.
AU  - Wilkinson,CL
AU  - Yeo,DCJ
AU  - Hui,TH
AU  - Fikri,AH
AU  - Ewers,RM
DO  - 10.1016/j.biocon.2018.04.004
EP  - 171
PY  - 2018///
SN  - 0006-3207
SP  - 164
TI  - Land-use change is associated with a significant loss of freshwater fish species and functional richness in Sabah, Malaysia
T2  - Biological Conservation
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2018.04.004
UR  - http://gateway.webofknowledge.com/gateway/Gateway.cgi?GWVersion=2&SrcApp=PARTNER_APP&SrcAuth=LinksAMR&KeyUT=WOS:000434745900017&DestLinkType=FullRecord&DestApp=ALL_WOS&UsrCustomerID=1ba7043ffcc86c417c072aa74d649202
UR  - http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/60824
VL  - 222
ER  -
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