Second Rufford Small Grant for Nature Conservation award

Congratulations to Sutomo for his second RSG, to read about this project http://www.rufford.org/projects/sutomo_sutomo

There are extensive projects on the impact of invasive plants on native biota in forest landscape. However, few projects have looked at the effects of fragmentation on the success of as well as the subsequent effect of the invaders on native species in fragments. Moreover, most studies only focus on single species or single trophic level. It is important to study the impacts of forest fragmentation and associated plant invasion on the community. Community-level study will provide a full understanding to frame habitat fragmentation and biological invasion. One major threat for native biota in fragmented forest is the introduction of invasive species. Invasive species are considered to have negative impact on ecological integrity of an ecosystem and its native biota, and they have caused major economic losses in agriculture and forestry sector.

Understanding the impact of forest fragmentation and its associated plant invasion on native plant species in Indonesia is essential to develop effective and appropriate policy and natural resource conservation-management strategy. The distribution and abundance of native and alien species data along the gradient of the microclimate gradient will be obtain. Furthermore, the project will also resulted in the risk assessment of potential alien and native species to become invasive (weed risk assessment) which will be of important information to conservation management. Community awareness on the impact of landscape disturbance and on the importance of conservation to prevent native biodiversity loss will also be considered by publishing it in photo book and scientific paper.