Rapidly changing land use in Southeast Asia threatens plant diversity, and reduces the time we have left to document it. Despite over 200 years of scientific plant exploration, many plant species have yet to be discovered. Moreover, we still have a very poor understanding of the distribution of known taxa in this biogeographically complex region. We review the current state of biodiversity exploration, using plants in Indonesia as an example. Traditional methods of collecting and describing species have provided a solid foundation for our understanding of plant biodiversity, but are insufficient for the pragmatic task of rapidly discovering and documenting today's biodiversity before it is gone, because general collecting expeditions tend to be infrequent, and documentation of most new species must await taxonomic revisions many years in the future. Solutions to this exploration and documentation crisis (i) could use the abundant resource of enthusiastic, networked, national biology students, (ii) should employ biodiversity informatics tools to efficiently engage both specialists and parataxonomists, and (iii) might require adoption of new types of a-taxonomy, utilizing increasingly low-cost molecular methods and high resolution photographs. We describe emerging technologies that will facilitate this Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (
The genus Pouteria Aublet is a pantropical group and many of its species produce high-quality timber and edible fruit. In 1991, on the basis of morphological characters, Pennington combined the genus Planchonella Pierre with Pouteria, expanding the latter genus to nine sections and 325 species. However, many Planchonella species were not included in his account and doubt remains about the generic limits of Pouteria sensu Pennington. This paper re-assesses the generic delimitation of Pouteria and its affinities with Planchonella from molecular data generated from the nuclear-encoded internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region. The analysis includes 22 Planchonella species and three Pouteria species sensu van Royen collected from Malesia and Australia, and seven additional Planchonella species from New Caledonia with molecular data available from GenBank. Other genera from Sapotaceae included in the analysis were Chrysophyllum, Niemeyera, Pichonia, Pycnandra and Xantolis (tribe Chrysophylleae) and Mimusops, Palaquium and Manilkara (outgroups from other tribes). The resulting ITS cladograms from both Bayesian and maximum parsimony analyses indicated that Malesian and Australasian Pouteria species are not monophyletic and comprise three separate lineages, therefore providing evidence against the broad circumscription of this genus by Pennington. Tertiary leaf venation type (reticulate, parallel or ramified), when mapped onto the phylogeny, correlated with these groupings, indicating that this character is taxonomically informative.
The gastric cancer incidence in Semarang, Indonesia, is exceedingly low: only approximately 1/100th of the level in Japan. To elucidate the reason, we carried out an ecological study recruiting 69 male and 102 female participants from the general populace in January 2005. Positive urea breath tests were 0% for both men and women, and Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) IgG antibodies were found in 2% (0-5, 95% confidence interval) of men and 2% (0 -4) of women, significantly lower than the 62% (58-65) and 57% (53-60), respectively, in Japan. Furthermore, there were no positive findings with the pepsinogen tests in Semarang, again significant in comparison with the 23% (22-25) and 22% (20-23) in Japan. Variation in smoking levels and consumption of NaCl, vegetables and fruit were found, but not to an extent that would allow explanation of the major differences in gastric cancer incidence. We may conclude that the very low prevalence of H. pylori infection and thus chronic atrophic gastritis account for the rarity of stomach cancer in Semarang, Indonesia. (Cancer Sci 2005; 96: 873-875) S ince 2002, we have been conducting a collaborative epidemiologic appraisal of host and environmental factors for stomach and colorectal cancer in several South-east Asian countries. Ecological and case-control studies are now being carried out in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam; Khon Kaen, Thailand; and Yogyakarta and Semarang, Indonesia, in order to take advantage of the major variation in cancer incidence among these geographical areas and also with data for Japan. Stomach cancer incidence rates in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Khon Kaen, Yogyakarta and Semarang are approximately 1/2, 1/4, 1/10, 1/50 and 1/100 those prevailing in Japan, respectively: the annual age-adjusted incidence rates for Semarang were 0.6/10 5 for men and 0.3/10 5 for women during 1990-1999, and the respective figures for Japan in 1995 were 67/10 5 and 27/10 5 .(1,2)Gastric cancer may be caused by environmental or lifestyle risks, host genetic polymorphisms, as well as aging.(3) Many laboratory studies have pointed to roles for carcinogenic substances, including amine pyrolysate products and nitrosamines; however, grilled or barbecued meat and fish are categorized as possible risk factors in humans.(3) A probable risk factor for stomach cancer is salt or salty foods, which act synergistically with Helicobacter pylori (H. Pylori) infection in the development of stomach cancer in experimental animals (4) and humans. (5) Convincing preventive factors are vegetables and fruit and refrigeration, and a probable preventive factor is vitamin C. The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has concluded that gastric cancer is a smokerelated malignancy.(6) H. pylori is a definite carcinogen, (7)(8)(9) and is accepted to be a major factor for chronic atrophic gastritis (CAG), (5) a precursor lesion for stomach cancer.We here report the results of an ecological study of stomach cancer with reference to H. pylori infection and pepsinogen tests as a marker of CAG, ...
The advent of the DNA sequencing age has led to a revolution in biology. The rapid and cost‐effective generation of high‐quality sequence data has transformed many fields, including those focused on discovering species and surveying biodiversity, monitoring movement of biological materials, forensic biology, and disease diagnostics. There is a need to build capacity to generate useful sequence data in countries with limited historical access to laboratory resources, so that researchers can benefit from the advantages offered by these data. Commonly used molecular techniques such as DNA extraction, PCR, and DNA sequencing are within the reach of small laboratories in many countries, with the main obstacles to successful implementation being lack of funding and limited practical experience. Here we describe a successful approach that we developed to obtain DNA sequence data during a small DNA barcoding project in Indonesia.
Research on feed plants selection and nesting site of cuscus (Phalanger sp.) was conducted in Nature Reserve of Gunung Mutis, West Timor, East Nusa Tenggara. The study was done in the montane rain forest with the altitude of 1530-2010 m a.s.l. The results showed seven species of plants was selected by cuscus as their nesting site and 41 species of plants as their feed resources. Parts of the plants being consumed were young leaves, flower, and fruit. Their habitat was damaged caused by exploitation of the forest. Meanwhile, hunting pressure by local people to provide their meat supply threatens the existence of cuscuses.
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