o_19ko2dt161ng2j4e1tgnoqv1s45a.pdf

CHEY VUN KHEN (2007)
RESEARCH REVIEW
Apart from the taxonomic work mentioned earlier, most of the research work on diversity of
moths and butterflies in Malaysia has focused on their use as bioindicators of habitat quality
and habitat change.
The specialist of Bornean macromoths, Dr. Jeremy Holloway in London, started his association
with Borneo back in 1965 when a Cambridge expedition to Mount Kinabalu was organised. A
paper giving a numerical analysis of the Kinabalu moth samples was published (Holloway
1970), as well as a taxonomic monograph on the moths of Mount Kinabalu (Holloway 1976).
Thereafter, he has been consistently publishing taxonomic monographs in his “Moths of
Borneo” series. Apart from that, he also publishes papers on moth ecology, particularly on the
use of moths as indicators in comparing forest habitats in Malaysia. His papers include one on
the larger moths of Gunung Mulu in Sarawak (Holloway 1984), and the response of moths to
forest conversion in Sabah (Holloway et al. 1992).
Dr. Holloway also trained up two Malaysian entomologists working on moths. One is the
present author who used moths to compare the biodiversity between plantation and natural
forests in Sabah (Chey 1994; Chey et al. 1997), and who later studied the moth diversity of
Lanjak-Entimau in Sarawak (Chey 2000a; 2000b). Another is Dr. Jurie Intachat of FRIM,
who assessed moth diversity in natural and managed forests in Peninsular Malaysia (Intachat
1995; Intachat et al. 1999a; 1999b; 2005). Chey worked on the whole spectrum of macromoths
to inventory biodiversity, while Intachat focused on the geometroid moths specifically to
monitor change.
Others who have worked on moth diversity in Borneo include the German researchers Schulze
& Fiedler (1996, 1997) and Beck et al. (2002).
Research on butterflies as indicators of forest disturbance in Sabah has been carried out since
the mid 1990s by Dr. Jane Hill of the UK and her colleagues. Their papers include species
abundance models (Hill & Hamer 1998), comparison of butterflies in rain forest gaps and
closed-canopy forests (Hill et al. 2001) as well as in natural and selectively logged forests
(Hamer et al. 2003), and the effects of rainfall as opposed to logging on the abundance of a
selected butterfly species (Hill et al. 2003). They used fruit-baited traps, which were also used
to study vertical stratification of activity (Tangah et al. 2004), as well as walk-and-count
ground-based surveys.
In addition to these studies, a lot of general information on moths and butterflies in Malaysia
is provided in the handbook by Holloway et al. (2001) and in the hostplant book by Robinson
et al. (2001).
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Dr. J.D. Holloway of the Natural History Museum in London kindly commented on the
manuscript.
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