Rediscoveries, new records, and the floristic value of the Nee Soon freshwater swamp forest, Singapore

Abstract

The unique plant communities of the freshwater swamp forests of southern Johor (Malaysia) and Singapore attracted the attention of E.J.H. Corner, but there have been no comprehensive follow-up studies to his seminal work. Meanwhile, freshwater swamp forests in the region have been mostly lost to logging and in-filling for plantations or urban development. The Nee Soon catchment contains the last substantial tract of this forest type in Singapore. We collated the rediscoveries of vascular plant species presumed Nationally Extinct in the 2 nd and latest edition of the Singapore Red Data Book, and new records for the Singapore vascular plant flora from the Nee Soon catchment, including those that we found and collected through the establishment and survey of 40 vegetation plots, each 20 × 20 m. We have identified 672 species from 117 families, of which 288 are trees from 60 families represented by at least one stem ≥ 5 cm DBH. The catchment is especially species rich and abundant in the Myristicaceae. In the last ten years, 53 rediscoveries, 11 new species records, and two new varietal records have been uncovered from (or can be found in) the Nee Soon catchment. The Nee Soon freshwater swamp forest is one of Singapore's most valuable botanical areas, and warrants sustained conservation effort and study.

The biological, ecological and conservation significance of freshwater swamp forest in Singapore

“…Among the different groups of plants, angiosperms are by far the most extensively studied plant group. Nevertheless, information on diversity of plants is probably still incomplete as demonstrated by continuing discoveries in Nee Soon and its vicinity (Chong et al, 2018).…”

Conservation outputs and recommendations for Nee Soon freshwater swamp forest, Singapore

“…9 Publish work on swamp forest ecology and the development of ecohydrological models in international, peerreviewed scientific journals So far, one guide book (Ho et al, 2016), one book chapter , nine journal papers (Neo et al, , 2017Sun et al, 2015Sun et al, , 2016Chong et al, 2016;Li et al, 2016;Lim et al, 2016;Tan et al, 2016;Wendi et al, 2016) and 18 conference papers have been published. Another eight papers have been accepted for publication Chong et al, 2018;Clews et al, 2018;Ho et al, 2018;Kutty et al, 2018;Lim et al, 2018;Nguyen et al, 2018;Sun et al, 2018).…”

“…The catchment is also a hotspot of new plant records and rediscoveries of species that have previously been presumed to be extinct in Singapore. The Nee Soon freshwater swamp forest is therefore of high floristic conservation value locally (Chong et al, 2018;Clews et al, 2018).…”

“…Another eight papers have been accepted for publication Chong et al, 2018;Clews et al, 2018;Ho et al, 2018;Kutty et al, 2018;Lim et al, 2018;Nguyen et al, 2018;Sun et al, 2018). used for editing and data management.…”

“…Literature Review of freshwater swamp forest literature and research on the Nee Soon freshwater swamp forest updated (Tan et al, 2013;Clews et al, 2018); new results derived from this project presented on vegetation (Chong et al, 2018), fauna Li et al, 2016;Ho et al, 2018;Lim et al, 2018) and cryogenics (Kutty et al, 2018).…”