About The Lab

Welcome!

 


The Evolutionary Ecology and Conservation Lab is led by Dr. David Bickford, an Assistant Professor in the Environmental Science Group (formerly known as the Biodiversity Group) at the Department of Biological Sciences, National University of Singapore. The lab is multi-faceted with many projects, interests, and study topics, focusing on amphibian and reptile ecology, evolution, and conservation. Goals include describing, explaining, and protecting biodiversity with a focus on Southeast Asia.  We are a multi-national, multi-lingual, and multi-cultural lab with interests in behavior, evolution, systematics, biogeography, ecology, and conservation.  Check out the lab members on our People page.

 

HEADLINE.


Dr Sheridan and Dr Bickford recently published a manuscript entitled

 

“Shrinking body size as an ecological response to climate change”

 

and this is available, pre-publication, from the Nature Climate Change Journal webpage . This article has stimulated considerable media and public interest (Google news search results relating to this article). Of these stories, one of the more ‘balanced’ reviews comes from CNN.


A large number of media articles, however, take a very biased and inflammatory view from this work.  If you take time to review some of the reader comments associated to these news/blog posts, the popular press and public reaction to the idea is diverse and more often than not, biased by non-scientific thinking or opinions.


A number of points to note about this article:

 

  1. This piece is published as a ‘perspective’ article and the purpose of such articles is to propose potential patterns and frameworks for which substantial data/proof is not available, in order to stimulate discussion and future scientific study. The definition of a perspective piece, taken from the NCC website;

 

“A perspective is intended to provide a forum for authors to discuss models and ideas from a personal viewpoint. They are more forward looking and/or speculative than Reviews and may take a narrower field of view. They may be opinionated but should remain balanced and are intended to stimulate discussion and new experimental approaches.”

 

 

  1. Some of the potential ecological patterns that are discussed in this article are reported in the media in ways that are misleading and not as we intended them. The article is a review and synthesis of a growing body of evidence towards a generalized reduction in body-sizes across many species. It takes available studies and data, logic and opinion, to extrapolate potential outcomes and how these outcomes may affect global biodiversity and ecosystem services.

 

 

As scientists have never lived through a period of sustained warming, we have no primary data on how species are going to respond, how fast they can respond, or how complex inter-species interactions could be altered.  We take the available data, formulate a theoretical framework, and attempt to predict what makes sense in that framework. The potential effects of global warming on species sizes that we propose in this article are (in our opinions) very probable and important to consider in the future.  We also think that much more data is needed before  we understand if shrinking sizes are going to be catastrophic or if complex ecological and evolutionary systems will adapt or restructure themselves in resiliant ways that still enable humanity to enjoy ecosystem services. Getting these ideas out to a wider scientific community will stimulate additional research and discussion on these patterns and accelerate further study.

 

 

 

No, we will not be producing, distributing, or marketing miniature polar bears!    

 (this makes sense if you read some comments on media articles).

 

Recent News

 

We have had a wonderful 2011, and are all set to finish off the semester with some new publications and a series of exciting field sessions across SE Asia.

 

One of the biggest news items is that we have officially joined the open lab facilities in S14 with PIs Richard Corlett, Theo Evans, and Ted Webb.  We are very excited and happy with the brand new lab and look forward to the scientific synergies.

 

Dr. Bickford was appointed the new Director of the Masters in Science Communication Program and is already looking forward to an exciting new curriculum for enhancing the understanding and appreciation of scientific ideas.

 

Drs. Bickford and Sheridan and Sam Howard recently published a response to an article in Trends in Ecology and Evolution on the phenomenon of reduction in body size as an effect of climate change.  Stay posted for more work on this!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Alex Figueroa joined us as an NSF EAPSI fellow over the busy summer for some fieldwork on arboreal snakes in Singapore.  Alex’s adventures were shared with our snake ladies and he was able to get a good data set from his time in the region. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sandra Goutte joined our expedition to Central Kalimantan. Sandra is from the Natural History museum of France (MNHN), working on call evoloution in Southeast Asian torrent frogs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We want to wish our Postdoc, Jennifer Sheridan, a bittersweet farewell; an auspicious new opportunity in the US and a sad loss for the lab (and we are not only referring to the baked goods).  Best of luck, Jen!

 

 

 

 

Sheila Poo has been collecting mountains of data in Thailand and has an article in press.   Both Samuel Howard and Sandra Gutte came back from field work in Kalimantan, chasing frogs and digging holes for a couple of months. Daniel Ng has expanded his research to Thailand and will have some very interesting comparative data.  In addition, we have a new batch of honours students working on many aspects of retile and amphibian ecology and conservation.

We also welcome our returning UROPS students, Mary-Ruth and Christopher as well as our newest additions to the lab: Johanna, Kenny, Prarthini, Yu Jun, and Shan Shan.

 

 

 

 

 

Congratulations to recent graduates, Jamie, Geraldine, Zeehan, and Tiffany.