Industrial oil palm plantations threaten biodiversity in Southeast Asia, yet some native species are highly adaptable within these environments. Our study investigates the space use of leopard cats (Prionailurus javanensis) within oil palm plantations adjacent to degraded forest fragments in the Kinabatangan floodplain, Sabah, Malaysian Borneo. From March to September 2020, we captured and collared four male cats with GPS collars, accumulating a total of 13,206 successful locational points. We estimated the home ranges using the Minimum Convex Polygon (MCP) and adaptative Localised Convex Hull (a-LoCoH) methods. The average home ranges were 8.60 km² ± 1.98 (± SD) [95% MCP] and 5.39 km² ± 1.23 [95% a-LoCoH], with corresponding core areas of 2.55 km² ± 0.99 (± SD) [50% MCP] and 1.05 km² ± 0.30 [50% a-LoCoH]. The home ranges of male leopard cats overlapped (7% to 28%), while core areas remained exclusive. Despite significant variations in individual habitat use, these cats were detected more frequently in oil palm habitat, occupying 80.89% of their home range and 78.38% of core area. Interestingly, they relied more on buffer zones contiguous to plantation area rather than adjacent secondary forests, highlighting the importance of preserving High Conservation Value (HCV) forests.

Plateau pikas cause changes in alpine meadow biodiversity and consequently impair ecosystem function through foraging, burrowing and defecation. However, existing studies often focus on a limited number of taxa, ignoring the fact that biodiversity loss occurs across many taxa and that the functional effects of any trophic group may depend on the diversity of other trophic groups. In this study, we analyzed the effects of disturbance by plateau pika on the diversity of organisms (plants, earthworms, ciliates, fungi and bacteria) and ecosystem multifunctionality (EMF) in different trophic groups. The results showed that: (1) disturbance by plateau pika significantly altered multi-trophic biodiversity and simultaneously affected EMF. (2) Plant species richness (25.52%) and functional richness (22.25%) were the most important factors driving EMF, followed by higher trophic level soil ciliates (18.35%) and earthworms (14.03%), and lower trophic level soil bacteria (9.88%), fungi, fungi, and bacteria (9.88%). Bacterial (9.88%) richness at lower trophic levels also drove EMF. (3) The relationship between biodiversity and EMF at each trophic level changed when the density of active burrows of plateau pikas was around 550 burrows/ha. At lower burrow densities (<530 burrows/ha), soil biodiversity had a greater effect on EMF, while at higher densities (>575 burrows/ha), plant diversity was more critical to EMF. (4) Disturbance by plateau pika had a negative effect on EMF, explaining 68% of the variation in EMF. This study reveals the important role of higher trophic level biodiversity in maintaining ecosystem function under the disturbance of plateau pika.

Malayan tapir is the only extant Asiatic species in the family Tapiridae, is endangered and threatened by risk of inbreeding from population structure. To elucidate the demographic and evolutionary history of the tapirs in Southeast Asia (SEA), this study analysed whole genome data from 10 individuals for historical effective population size (Ne) inference using sequentially Markovian coalescence (i.e., PSMC, MSMC, MSMC2), folded site frequency spectrum, (i.e., Stairway Plot 2), and their hybrid SMC++. The results revealed that tapir Ne ranged 6,000–12,000 in the last glacial period but went down to < 2,000 in recent time. Genomic analysis and population split time analysis (PSMC and SMC++) supported a population divergence (Fst > 0.25) between the Sumatran and mainland SEA tapirs since at least 6 kya. Subsidence of Sundaland and rainforest reduction were the major drivers for Ne decline. The timing of population split corresponded well with the inundation of Straits of Malacca to present-day levels by rapidly raising sea-levels during 10–6 kya. Results of this study, as well as contemporary geographical isolation, supports the subspecies status of the Sumatran population. This will have implication to the ex-situ conservation practices that may have produced hybrids of the isolated populations.

Although the amount of acidic deposition has recently decreased in Japan, acid deposition has deteriorated some forest ecosystems during the past few decades. We investigated the yearly variations in stream water chemistry for more than 20 years in two areas (Yusuhara and Taisho) in the Shmanto River Basin, southern Japan, where the effects of acidic deposition are considered to be modest. Stream water samples were collected monthly from three forest watersheds selected at each site. The annual means of the stream chemistry were predicted by multiple regression analysis. The sunlight hours were positively related with the potassium, magnesium, calcium, nitrate, sulfate, and bicarbonate concentrations in stream water. The results suggest that long sunlight hours boost the photosynthetic activities, thus promoting soil respiration and decomposition of soil organic matter; moreover, a higher carbonic acid concentration in the soil solution promotes cation weathering and carbonic acid dissociation to bicarbonate. The ammonium, nitrate, and sulfate concentrations in the bulk precipitation have decreased at Yusuhara and the sodium, magnesium, calcium, chloride, nitrate, and sulfate concentrations in the stream water have decreased in both areas. The nitrate and sulfate concentrations apparently responded to the decreasing input of acidic deposition. Given the decreasing trends in magnesium and calcium concentration with no change in bicarbonate concentration, we inferred that previous inputs of acidic deposition enhanced the rate of rock weathering.