...the VIP of global marine biodiversity

A 'VIP' of global marine biodiversity in the Philippines

Mikael Angelo Francisco

GMA News

September 28, 2019 

Whenever we hear about a newly discovered plant or animal, we tend to focus on the exotic location where it was found, or distinguishing morphological traits that merit its classification as an entirely new species. We rarely talk about how scientists determine new species, which isn’t really surprising. After all, it isn’t that hard to understand that the process of naming a new species is far more complicated than thinking of a cool-sounding Latin binomial name and calling it a day.

When experts come across an unidentified specimen, they use a system of concepts ranging from physical appearance to reproductive compatibility in figuring out whether or not it really is a new species. Another part of the process involves checking existing records to ensure that the seemingly new species isn’t just a variation of an existing one.

Admittedly, it’s not uncommon for scientists to discover new species each year. Roughly two million unique species have been catalogued over the course of human history; scientists estimate that the actual number of species in the wild could easily be five times that.

Nevertheless, one can only imagine the kind of rush that comes with adding yet another name to the taxonomic record. It’s probably the same kind of rush that Dr. Terry Goslinger, Senior Curator of Invertebrate Zoology at the California Academy of Sciences, has felt during virtually every single one of his visits to the Philippines over the last 27 years.

VIP: A very important place

“I started working on coral reefs in the Philippines in 1992,” Goslinger said at a recent forum in Manila. His colleagues had told him that the marine life in the Philippines was rich and diverse, in waters that were relatively unexplored. At that point, Goslinger had been conducting his research in Papua New Guinea.

^{Dr. Wilfredo Licuanan, Dr. Meg Burke, and Dr. Terry Goslinger speaking during a forum.}

“One of my colleagues said, ‘If you think Papua New Guinea is rich, you ought to come to the Philippines.’ And they were absolutely right, and I was astounded,” he said.

It didn’t take long for Goslinger and his fellow scientists to verify that the Philippines was exceptionally rich in marine biodiversity. Furthermore, they found that the richest area was a 1.14-million-hectare waterway separating Luzon and Mindoro known as the Verde Island Passage (or VIP).

The VIP is part of what marine scientists call the Coral Triangle. Located in the western region of the Pacific Ocean, the Coral Triangle encompasses the waters of the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste (also known as East Timor), and the Solomon Islands.

Serving as the underwater home of six marine turtle species, nearly 600 species of reef-building corals, and over 2,000 reef fish species, the Coral Triangle is recognized as the global center of marine biodiversity—and the VIP is the center of the center.

The VIP itself houses over 400 species of corals, and functions as a safe haven for hundreds of marine species from both subtropical and tropical climate zones. These include, but are not limited to, whale sharks, sea turtles, nudibranchs (colloquially known as sea slugs), and about 60 percent of the world’s shorefish species. Various species of fish and larvae also find their way to the VIP, carried by strong currents from the Pacific Ocean.

Additionally, local and foreign experts from different research and conservation institutions discover new marine species in the VIP every year. In 2018, the Academy announced that it had found 14 new species in the Philippines, a number of which were nudibranchs from the VIP.

These factors have earned the VIP not one, but two scientifically backed titles: the Center of the Center of Marine Shorefish Biodiversity, and the Center of the Center of the Marine Biodiversity of the World.

Coral lesson

For over three decades, Dr. Wilfredo Licuanan has been actively surveying and monitoring coral reefs across the country. Recently, he led a nationwide assessment of the overall health of coral reefs in the Philippines.

Throughout Licuanan’s career, however, there’s one significant detail about his work — specifically, about corals — that he has had to explain to various audiences and stakeholders more times than he can probably remember:

“When we talk about corals [in the context of coral reefs], we’re not talking about rocks; we’re talking about animals.”

According to Licuanan, a Full Professor of De La Salle University’s Biology department, each of these tiny coral animals — called polyps — possess very thin tissue.

“Most of the coral is actually skeleton,” he explained, “hence the common misconception that corals are rocks.”

Not all corals have skeletons. Soft corals (such as gorgonians, sea fans, and sea pens) are feathery, flexible, and plant-like. The ones that we tend to mistake for rocks are hard corals — corals with skeletons made of aragonite, a type of calcium carbonate. These skeletons are designed to protect the corals from strong waves or other animals.

Coral reefs are formed when polyps living in colonies (groups of hundreds, thousands, or even more) deposit calcium carbonate beneath their bodies and form large structures. For this reason, hard corals are also known as reef-building corals.

Coral reefs support some of the most biodiverse areas on the planet. Aside from being a fortified habitat for countless marine species, they also play a significant role in the food chain, as they provide important nutrients (such as nitrogen) and facilitate nutrient recycling (the movement and exchange of organic and inorganic matter back into the production of living matter).

Coral grief

Corals have a symbiotic relationship with microscopic algae called zooxanthellae. Zooxanthellae serve as the corals’ primary food source, as well as the reason behind their color.

However, when water temperatures grow warmer, the relationship becomes stressed, resulting in the expulsion of the algae from the corals. When this happens, the corals turn ghostly white--a phenomenon we call coral bleaching. And while this does not immediately kill corals, they will eventually die if they are unable to recover.

Rising ocean temperatures due to global warming are the primary cause of coral bleaching. Meanwhile, water pollution and abusive fishing practices are significant hindrances to coral recovery.

Consequently, the death and breakdown of corals and coral reefs will have severe effects on the countless marine populations that depend on the reefs for sustenance and protection. Coral bleaching also negatively impacts entire industries, such as fishing and tourism.

One of the most noteworthy examples of wide-scale coral bleaching in the Philippines happened in 2010, brought about by El Niño. It was one of three incidents documented by the Philippine Coral Bleaching Watch over the last twenty years.

“We lost many of the coral reefs in Southeast Asia, and we saw extensive bleaching in places like Palawan,” recalled Goslinger, “We saw a lot of coral death.”

At the time, approximately 25 to 30 percent of the VIP experienced massive coral bleaching.

“The corals were getting rid of their algae, looking very sick, and looking like they may die. This was the first time we had really seen this extent of coral bleaching and unhealthy conditions, and we were very, very concerned about that,” he said.

To the scientists’ surprise, however, things looked different when they returned to the VIP six weeks later.

“Already, the corals that had bleached were starting to regain their color, because they were absorbing new algae,” he said.

Eventually, the damage that the VIP’s corals had previously sustained was almost completely gone, revealing that apart from its rich biodiversity, the VIP also possesses natural resilience, for reasons that require further research to understand.

“There is great hope that the Verde Island Passage can repopulate other parts of the Philippines, and can be a genetic storehouse [as well],” he said.

Reef power, reef responsibility

Truth be told, while the VIP is full of marine wonders and mysteries, there may not be enough scientists in the Philippines (or even in the world) to understand what must be done and take the necessary measures before it’s too late.

And that’s precisely where citizen action comes into play.

“We think it’s not only important, but an obligation to help the local community understand why we’re there, and why the reefs are important,” explained Dr. Meg Burke, the Academy’s Associate Dean of Science Operations.

A frequent visitor of the Philippines and the VIP, Burke’s efforts are focused on science education—specifically, engaging the communities and empowering them with the skills and knowledge necessary to monitor their own reefs.

“If you can take that first step and help people understand that corals are living animals, you can often see the lightbulb go off,” shared Burke. “And it’s like, ‘Now I get it.' Because if corals are living animals, then when anchors are dropped on corals, you’re killing living animals. You’re not just breaking up a rock. If dynamites are used, you’re not just making big rocks smaller. You’re killing animals."

“Only by training local communities can you help ensure that there will be eyes on the reef — that people will be watching to see what’s going on,” she added.

Over the last few years, government agencies, conservation groups, and law enforcement have worked on initiatives to combat the major threats to the VIP’s sustainability: overfishing, illegal waste disposal, and daily commercial vessel activity. Just last year, the local government declared every fourth week of September to be the Verde Island Passage (VIP) Conservation Awareness Week.

Additionally, marine conservationists and concerned parties in the area have been pushing for the VIP’s nomination and proclamation as a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Site—not for recognition, but for the purposes of pressuring officials to take better care of the VIP. 

“We still have time to protect the richest reefs in the world," Goslinger assured. "Our treasure trove of biodiversity on this planet.”

—JCB, GMA News

...the biodiversity hotspot

‘Like spaghetti’: Worm-slurping, hopping rats discovered in the Philippines


Nandita Chandraprakash
Mongabay.com
26 August 2019

• The highly biodiverse island of Luzon in the Philippines has yielded up two species of rats new to science.
• Both are found high up on Luzon’s mountains, where they’ve evolved to feed on the earthworms that abound in the lush, wet habitat.
• Researchers say they hope the new discoveries, the latest of dozens made here since 2000, will help shine a spotlight on the importance of conserving Luzon’s unique habitats and wildlife.

As you explore the high altitudes of Luzon Island in the Philippines, you’ll encounter plenty of earthworms. There’s an abundance of them. So the ecosystem did exactly what nature does to bring balance: it evolved predators. And the most common earthworm predators here are rats. Two of them, in fact, are new to science, having only just been described in a paper published in July.

“They’re quite bizarre,” says lead author Eric Rickart, a curator at the Natural History Museum of Utah, University of Utah. “They hop around on their sturdy hind legs and large hind feet, almost like little kangaroos. They have long, delicate snouts, and almost no chewing teeth.”

The scientists caught one of these new “tweezer-beaked hopping rats” when they set traps with a regularly employed bait: peanut butter. The first capture, however, happened quite by chance as the rat wasn’t interested in the peanut butter. However, it did slurp up an earthworm when the scientists offered it one as an experiment. Subsequently, when the team, led by the late Danilo Balete of Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History, set traps with live, wriggling earthworms as bait, they came across the two new earthworm-loving rat species.

Scientists named the new species Rhynchomys mingan and Rhynchomys labo after the mountains they’re respectively found on, Mount Mingan and Mount Labo. Their genus name comes from the ancient Greek rhyncos for “snout,” due to the rats’ long pointed noses, and mys for “mouse.”

The rats catch earthworms by quietly hop-stalking little trails they make among the mud and humus of the forest. Once they detect an earthworm, they quickly pounce. They then brush the dirt off and swallow the worm whole, “like a long spaghetti,” according to the scientists.

“One of the things that’s striking to see was their reflexes — they’re lightning quick,” says Lawrence Heaney, a curator at the Field Museum and co-author of the study. “It later became obvious why they’re that fast. They’re trying to catch a nimble earthworm that's partly in a hole.

The research team and porters at the beginning of the hike to Mount Labo, where one of the two new species was discovered. Heaney, Balete and Alviola are in the front, center. Image by TKTK.

Island evolution

Luzon is the largest Philippine island and, at 27 million years old, one of the oldest oceanic islands in the world with never any direct dry-land connection to continental Asia. With volcanoes and mountain ranges, life in Luzon has rich resources and undisturbed geographical diversity to evolve uniquely. Today, all native animals and plants of Luzon are descendants of ancient species that colonized the island by crossing formidable water barriers. The tweezer-beaked hopping rats of the Rhynchomys genus evolved from a single ancient colonization event 7 million to 9 million years ago. They are found nowhere else on Earth.

These “earthworm rats” had to adapt to the prey available: earthworms. They quietly hop trails, dig deep in the soil, work through leaf litter, or go up the trees among orchids and other epiphytes, all in search of the best sustenance available. The worms are common in Luzon’s high, wet altitudes, with a forest floor covered in fallen plant material that takes a long time to decompose.

An example of the mossy forest habitat where species of Rhynchomys live in northern Luzon. Image by L.R. Heaney.

Scientists find Luzon particularly fascinating because it’s a natural laboratory for studying evolution.

“These interwoven processes occur everywhere, but they can be studied most readily on islands because of the effects of isolation,” Rickart says. As for the rats, they have adapted uniquely to take advantage of the rainforest’s abundance in earthworms and provide a great example of how evolution works as generations of a species are isolated in confined pockets.

Scientists have described 30 new species of mammals in Luzon since 2000 and expect to find more. In that same period, just one new mammal species was discovered in all of Europe, a land mass 92 times larger than Luzon. Rickart and his team say they believe Luzon has the world’s greatest concentration of endemic mammals on the planet.

“There are sky islands within the big island [of Luzon],” Heaney adds.

Conservation of the rats and biodiversity in Luzon

Only 6 percent of the tropical old-growth forests that blanketed the Philippines 500 years ago survive today. The country is losing its rainforests to oil palm plantations and other agricultural interests.

But the two new species are lucky; they live in high-elevation forests — wet, cold and steep — and are not currently threatened by agriculture or logging. Still, experts say geothermal energy development and mining could pose threats down the road. And it may not take much to endanger the new species.

“As far as we know, the two species are geographically restricted to small areas on isolated mountains, so any broad-scale disturbance to their habitat could be a great threat,” Rickart says.

The good news is that scientists have seen a steady rise in the growth of secondary forests, albeit a slow one, over the last 25 years. The earthworm rats don’t necessarily require old-growth forests but do need high-altitude habitats at elevations above 1,500 meters (about 5,000 feet).

“What we see is that as the forest regenerates, the native mammals move back in,” Heaney says.

Cloud field atop Mount Mingan. Cloud forests are believed to contain the maximum mammalian diversity. Image by L.R. Heaney/Field Museum of Natural History.

Locals understand the importance of the forests, especially old-growth ones, against the pummeling of typhoons, according to the researchers. Without forests in higher lands, and the absorbent, mulch-carpeted mossy floors that act as intact watersheds, typhoons can cause extensive damage, including loss of life, due to erosion, landslides, mudslides and floods.

“The local populations and governments want to protect the land on which they depend for water and indirect resources,” Heaney says, adding that the researchers got a lot of support from the Philippines Department of Environment and Natural Resources.

The scientists say they hope the discovery of the tweezer-beaked hopping rats, and of all the other creatures here in recent decades, will put additional focus on conservation in Luzon. When a new species is discovered, it provides publicity and spark, Heaney says: “It often helps a lot to promote the establishment of new protected areas and national parks.” The docile earthworm-slurping rats, it turns out, may inadvertently promote conservation in their home range.

Map of the Philippine archipelago, showing the locations of modern islands in green, Late Pleistocene (ice-age) islands in light blue, and deep seas in dark blue. From “The Mammals of Luzon Island: Biogeography and Natural History of a Philippine Fauna,” Johns Hopkins University Press. Image © Heaney, Balete and Rickart (2016).

...the Philippines' top diving destination goal

Philippines wants to become the top diving destination in the world

by Marian Z. Codilla,

Philippine Daily Inquirer

(published in skift.com)

Apr 20, 2013

A snorkeler floats next to a Giant gorgonian in Cebu, Philippines. Alfonso González / Flickr

 

 

The Department of Tourism (DOT) is planning to make diving as one of the major drivers in promoting the Philippines.

“If you come to the Philippines and you don’t like what you see on land, just stick your head under water and you will be okay,” said Tourism Secretary Ramon Jimenez Jr. during yesterday’s World Deep (Diving Expo and Exhibition Philippines) in Shangri-La Mactan Resort and Spa in Mactan Island.

Jimenez said the tourism department would now be banking on the Philippines being the centre of biodiversity in their marketing strategy.

“We will make diving in the Philippines, a major force for tourists to come,” he said.

The dive expo organised by Philippine Commission on Sports and Scuba Diving (PCSSD) and Philippine Association on Underwater Activities (PAUA) and the DOT were attended by at least 130 representatives from different dive organisations from all over the world.

The three-day event is a venue for cultural exchanges and bilateral talks between members of World Confederation of Underwater Activities (CMAS) about diving and underwater policies.

The Philippines is considered as the global centre of marine biodiversity based on the study of an American biologist entitled Centre of the Marine Shore Fish Diversity: the Philippine Islands published by the World Bank in 2007.

The revenue in diving makes up a quarter of the total tourism revenue.

Divers, according to Jimenez, accounts to not less than five per cent of the country’s tourists.
Karen Chan, executive director of PCSSD, an attached agency of the DOT said 15 per cent of foreign tourists come here for diving.

“Divers tend to stay longer and have a lot of activities included in their regular tourism,” Jimenez said.

Aside from its monetary contribution the economy, promoting the Philippines as a world-class diving destination puts environmental protection an advantage.

“The biggest benefit in propagating diving in this country is that it forces us to preserve our ocean,” Jimenez said.

DOT Central Visayas Regional Director Rowena Montecillo said protecting the environment from being exploited is very important.

The secretary said he would meet with Department of Interior and Local Government, Department of Environment, Department of Agriculture among other government agencies to discuss the DOT’s direction to make diving a subset of tourism.

According to Montecillo, diving is the top tourist activity in the region.

In Cebu, dive tourists are concentrated in the dive resorts in Malapascua island in the north and Moalboal in the south.

“We are the centre of biodiversity in this part of the world. It is important that we raise awareness in protecting the environment,” Jimenez said.

For Cebu to become a successful tourist destination in the world, the people must love diving.
Benedict Reyes, president of PAUA said it is also important to engage the youth in underwater activities such as aquathlon, underwater hockey, underwater rugby, fin swimming, underwater photography among others.

The three-day expo includes at least 50 exhibitors of different dive attractions in the country including the showcase of the Department of Science and Technology’s coral rehabilitation programmes in the country which started last year.

 

...the PH owls

Two new owls discovered in PH

 

ABS-CBNnews.com

08/20/2012

 

 

(Top left) Cebu Hawk owl and (bottom right) the Camiguin Hawk owl. Photo courtesy of Oriental Bird Club: original painting by John Gale

MANILA, Philippines -- Two new species of owls have been discovered in the Philippines, according to the Michigan State University (MSU), whose researcher played a key role in confirming the birds' existence.

The news is featured in the current issue of Forktail, the Journal of Asian Ornithology.

According to the paper's lead author Pam Rasmussen, an assistant professor of zoology at the Msu and assistant curator of mammalogy and ornithology at the MSU Museum, the discovery took years to confirm but was well worth the effort.

"More than 15 years ago, we realized that new subspecies of Ninox hawk-owls existed in the Philippines," she said. "But it wasn't until last year that we obtained enough recordings that we could confirm that they were not just subspecies, but two new species of owls."

"Announcing the finding of a single bird is rare enough. But the discovery of two new bird species in a single paper is so rare that Rasmussen and the other researchers couldn't recall the last time it happened," the MSU said in a statement.

The first owl, the Camiguin Hawk-owl, is said to be found only in Camiguin Sur.

"At night, it gives a long solo song that builds in intensity, with a distinctive low growling tone. Pairs of owls give short barking duets that start with a growl. They also are the only owls to have blue-gray eyes," the MSU said.

The second new discovery was the Cebu Hawk-owl, which was thought to be extinct due to deforestation.

"The owls don't learn their songs, which are genetically programmed in their DNA and are used to attract mates or defend their territory; so if they're very different, they must be new species," Rasmussen said.

"When we first heard the songs of both owls, we were amazed because they were so distinctly different that we realized they were new species."

The owls have avoided recognition as distinct species for so long "because the group shows complex variation in appearance that had been poorly studied, and their songs were unknown," the MSU saod, adding that both islands are "off the beaten path" for ornithologists and birders, who usually visit the larger islands that host more bird species.

Sound recordings of both new owl species and those from other islands are available free on AVoCet, the university said.

The MSU said a team of scientists and contributors to confirm the owls' existence, which included individuals from BirdLife International, the Oriental Bird Club, Philippines Biodiversity Conservation Foundation Inc. and Birdtour Asia.

Additional support was also provided by National Geographic.

...the marine conservation model

Tubbataha Reef hailed by experts as marine conservation model

YASMIN ARQUIZA

GMA News

July 12, 2012

CAIRNS, Australia – In what is regarded as the center of coral diversity in the world, the Tubbataha Reef in the Philippines is emerging as a model for conservation in the face of grave threats to the region’s coral reefs.

The Philippines is one of the six countries in a region dubbed the Coral Triangle, which contains nearly 30 percent of the world’s coral reefs and more than 3,000 species of fish — twice the number found anywhere else in the world.

^{Seabirds on the north islet of Tubbataha. Photo: Michael D. Marasigan}

A new report from the World Resources Institute released at a weeklong symposium here said more than 85 percent of reefs in the Coral Triangle —the global average is 60 percent— are directly threatened by human activities such as overfishing, pollution from watersheds, and coastal development.

“Across the Coral Triangle region, coastal communities depend on coral reefs for food, livelihoods, and protection from waves during storms, but the threats to reefs in this region are incredibly high,” said Lauretta Burke, senior associate at WRI and a lead author of the report.

More than 130 million people living in Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Solomon Islands, and Timor-Leste depend on coral reefs for food, employment, and tourism revenues, the report said.

“Much of the threat is anthropogenic, which is something we have control of,” observed Alan White, senior scientist of The Nature Conservancy and one of the report’s contributing authors.

Protection measures are lacking, however, with only three per cent of coral reefs in the Philippines designated as no-take zones inside marine protected areas (MPA), he said. In comparison, 29 per cent of reefs in Indonesia and 11 per cent in Malaysia are inside MPAs.

Amid the gloomy statistics, the Tubbataha Reef is one of the “excellent sites” among the measly one per cent of MPAs in the Coral Triangle that are considered to be effectively managed, White said. The Solomon Islands also has some good sites, he added.

“The Tubbataha is really a success story,” said White, who has done long-term monitoring of the reef’s resources for two decades.

Shift in marine diversity

Located within the municipality of Cagayancillo in Palawan, the Tubbataha Reef was declared the Philippines’ first national marine park in 1988 by then-President Corazon Aquino and subsequently proclaimed a World Heritage Site five years later.

Since the mid-1990s, when then-President Fidel Ramos stationed Philippine Navy and Coast Guard in the uninhabited coral atolls, Tubbataha has benefited from continuous protection against poachers that brave the difficult crossing in the Sulu Sea to reach the reefs.

A park manager and civilian staff have augmented the armed personnel while a multi-sectoral board sets management policies in the park, which has been voted as one of the world’s ten best dive sites.

Theresa Mundita Lim, director of the Protected Areas and Wildlife Bureau (PAWB), said a study conducted in 2010 showed that the center of marine diversity in the Philippines had shifted to Tubbataha Reef instead of the central Philippine Sea, as an earlier study had indicated.

Fishing pressure in the Visayas due to increasing population and disturbance from tourism could be some of the possible reasons for the trend, she said.

Moreover, “we protected Tubbataha,” Lim told reporters on the sidelines of the symposium, which is held every four years to share new research results.

Secretary Ramon Paje of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, which administers PAWB, has given instructions to her agency to come up with guidelines for scuba divers so that the country’s coral reefs can be protected from further degradation, Lim said.

Two-thirds of PHL reefs highly threatened

Overfishing and destructive practices such as blast or poison fishing are the greatest threats to the country’s reefs, affecting 98 percent or nearly the entire reef area, according to the WRI report.

The only exceptions are reefs in well-managed MPAs, the report added. These include the Tubbataha Reefs, along with Apo Island in the Visayas, and 23 smaller MPAs managed by local government and community organizations.

Two-thirds of the reefs are rated in the high or very high threat categories, going up to nearly 80 per cent when global warming and coral bleaching are included in the analysis.

Infrastructure development and crowding of coastlines, along with pollution mainly from farms and erosion of deforested mountains, threaten nearly 60 percent of reefs, the report said. — TJD/VS/HS, GMA News

...the new ant species

40 new ant species found in the Philippines

By Jojo Malig, ABS-CBNnews.com

06/27/2012

One of the new ant species discovered on Mt. Isarog by researchers from Palawan State University and Harvard University. ZooKeys photo

 

Deforestation threatens unique ant species

MANILA, Philippines - Researchers have discovered 40 new ant species in the Philippines.

However, the discovery could be short-lived as deforestation and the destruction of the insect's natural habitat threaten ant species in the Philippines that are found nowhere else in the world, David General and his colleagues at the Palawan State University and Harvard University said in their paper published in ZooKeys science journal.

General told the OurAmazingPlanet website that the 40 new species of ants belong to 11 various genera (plural of genus), bringing the total number of genera to 92, which is twice the number of genera found in biodiversity-rich Madagascar.

One of the new species has a unique mouth and mandibles, which may have evolved for the ants to manipulate their environment, he added.

General and Harvard University's Gary Alpert said in their paper that there are 474 ant species and subspecies known from the Philippines and at least 100 other unidentified species based on museum specimens and recent collections.

"The total size of the ant fauna is no doubt much larger, almost certainly more than 1,000 species are present," they said.

The new ant species were discovered on Mt. Isarog, a dormant volcano in Camarines Sur province.

Guardian blogger GrrlScientist, an evolutionary biologist and ornithologist, told ABS-CBNNews.com on Wednesday about the discovery of the new ant species.

Biodiversity hotspot

In their paper, General and Alpert described the Philippines as a biodiversity hotspot.

"The Philippines is so ecologically diverse that it is very difficult to characterize the country in a single paragraph," they said, citing the different climate and weather systems in the country that change because of the country's varying topography.

"This complex blend of climatic diversity and opportunity for geographic isolation has likely led to high levels of endemism, a phenomenon that deserves much further exploration," they said.

In their paper, the scientists raised the specter of unique animal species being wiped out because of human activities.

"The Philippines is considered one of the hottest of the biodiversity hotspots because of the severe human pressure on its highly endemic native flora and fauna," they said.

"Time is running out for the the remaining primary forests. Despite decades of regulation and reforestation, forests continue to dwindle," they added.

The paper said all the privately reforested narra trees in their study site in 2003 and 2004 were poached by 2009, "wiping out 27 years of stewardship of the area."

"Even the stumps were removed. Forest destruction seems to go on unabated, exacerbated by new large-scale mining projects that seem to target the mineral resources under primary forests," it added.

Invasive species also threaten native ants, the researchers said.

They added that much is yet to be discovered by scientists undertaking ant research in the Philippines.

"The Philippine ant fauna is very poorly explored and records are few and spotty at best. A researcher can essentially choose a mountain among several hundred mountains, get the necessary permits and be the first one to study the ants on that mountain. However, that mountain may also be very disturbed or degraded, leaving only the tramp species that abound in disturbed habitats," the said.

"In addition to environmental damage, there is also an active communist insurgency and other serious security threats to researchers in the field. Other areas may harbor malaria mosquitoes and other serious health threats. Hence, local collaboration is quite necessary to minimize the risks of field work in the Philippines," they added.

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