The interface of the Asian and Australian faunal zones is defined by a network of deep ocean trenches that separate intervening islands of the Philippines and Wallacea (Sulawesi, the Lesser Sundas, and the Moluccas). Studies of this region by Wallace marked the genesis of the field of biogeography, yet few workers have used molecular methods to investigate the biogeography of taxa whose distrib...

Isolation of populations eventually leads to divergence by genetic drift, but if connectivity varies over time, its impact on diversification may be difficult to discern. Even when the habitat patches of multiple species overlap, differences in their demographic parameters, molecular evolution and stochastic events contribute to differences in the magnitude and distribution of their genetic var...

We describe a new species of fanged frog (Limnonectes larvaepartus) that is unique among anurans in having both internal fertilization and birth of tadpoles. The new species is endemic to Sulawesi Island, Indonesia. This is the fourth valid species of Limnonectes described from Sulawesi despite that the radiation includes at least 15 species and possibly many more. Fewer than a dozen of the 645...

On the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, nonhuman primate pets come into frequent contact with humans, presenting the possibility of zoonotic and anthropozoonotic disease transmission. We collected fecal samples from 88 pet macaques representing six of the seven macaque species currently recognized as endemic to Sulawesi (Macaca nigra, M. nigrescens, M. hecki, M. tonkeana, M. maura, and M. ochreat...

The Makassar Strait region has had the highest frequency of historical tsunami events for Indonesia. The strait has a seismic activity due to the convergence of four tectonic plates that produces a complex mixture of structures. The main tsunamigenic features in the Makassar Strait are the Palu-Koro and Pasternoster transform fault zones, which form the boundaries of the Makassar trough. Analys...

The Indonesian island of Sulawesi, a globally important hotspot of avian endemism, has been relatively poorly studied ornithologically, to the extent that several new bird species from the region have been described to science only recently, and others have been observed and photographed, but never before collected or named to science. One of these is a new species of Muscicapa flycatcher that ...

Following ongoing ecological research on the tree diversity of the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, we describe five new species of Syzygium. These are the first descriptions of Syzygium species from the island since Blume (1850, Jambosa celebica and J. cornifolia), highlighting the significant lack of taxonomic research on the genus for the region. The five species proposed as new are Syzygium b...

S. celebensis is a medium sized pig which is common in north, central and eastern Sulawesi, but it is now scarce in south Sulawesi and may be extinct on nearby Selayar Island, both of which areas have been largely deforested. It also occurs as a native form on the adjacent islands of Buton, Muna, Peleng, Lembeh and on some of the Togian Islands. The species has also been quite widely introduced...

Indonesia has a total population of around 206 million with 4.5 million households keeping livestock. About half of the cattle farmers are small farmers. The Indonesian archipelago is a land area of 1.8 million km consisting of over 13,000 islands stretching from the Western tip of Sumatra to the Eastern border of Papua. The largest island, Kalimantan (Borneo), covers 28% of the total land area...

The expansion of oil palm cultivation in Indonesia has been driven by a strong world demand for food especially fats and oils. Commencing in the island of Sumatra, it spread out to other island like Kalimantan, Sulawesi and Irian but not to the island of Bali which was already well developed. The role of palm oil in developing remote inland regions and improving the standard of living of rural ...