| dc.description.abstract | Within the last few decades Southeast Asian tropical peat-swamp forests have been increasingly better studied with greater understanding of their importance to global conservation. This rise in attention began towards the end of the 20th century as the scientific community started to recognise the vital role they play in global carbon storage and other ecosystem services. Now, this forest ecosystem is known to harbour diverse fauna and flora populations, some of which are the last remaining strongholds of highly threatened species. Despite this, tropical peat-swamp forests are being severely degraded due to widespread logging, yearly forest fires, and unregulated land conversion. This has led to a significant reduction in the remaining area of pristine forest, as well as globally significant carbon emissions, and many peatlands are now covered only by patchy, degraded forest or pioneer vegetation communities. With degradation set to continue, it is vital to improve our understanding of how these degraded peatlands will change over time and determine how to restore tropical peat-swamp forest communities. Chapter one investigates whether tropical peat-swamp forest vegetation is capable of regenerating naturally in a protected but previously degraded forest. The vegetation communities in the logged and burned areas, within the recovering Sebangau forest, were surveyed and compared to the undisturbed forest to identify the severity to which they have been altered. The results suggest that regeneration potential is highly dependent on the type is degradation faced, with selectively logged forest showing many signs of positive regeneration after just 15 years. Conversely, vegetation surveys in two burned forest areas, 4 years and 14 years post-fire, show that regeneration is greatly inhibited and without assistance these sites will remain low in diversity and plant cover. Chapter two builds on the findings of the previous chapter by examining how faunal biodiversity responds to the aforementioned degradation. This study surveyed the fruit-feeding butterfly population in the selectively logged, relatively undisturbed, and 4 years post-fire forest area, over a full year, as this taxonomic group is a useful indicator of a habitat’s wider biodiversity. The results were congruent with those in chapter one, as the selectively logged forest contained a population with highly similar abundance, species richness, and composition as recorded in the relatively undisturbed forest. Whereas surveys in the burned forest show an almost complete loss of butterflies, indicating a significant loss of fauna diversity. Overall, this thesis draws two main conclusions which both have large implications for the conservation of the tropical peat-swamp forest ecosystem. Firstly, selectively logged forests are capable of regenerating naturally, and if further degradation can be prevented these areas can have significant conservation value, especially when considering the lack of pristine forest. Secondly, burned tropical peatlands show little capability of natural regeneration and are likely to be inhospitable for the region’s fauna. Therefore, significant assistance will be required to restore forest cover, prevent further carbon emissions, and help conserve many threatened species. | en_GB |
