Southeast Asian Mangroves in a Changing World: Insights from Phylogeography, Ecophysiology and Biomonitoring

Abstract

Southeast Asia is home to the highest diversity of mangrove plant species, but also one of the most threatened mangrove ecosystems in the world. This talk examines the past, present and future of Southeast Asian mangroves through the lens of phylogeography, ecophysiology, and biomonitoring. The first part of this talk summarizes key research findings on the biogeography of major mangrove lineages in Southeast Asia and the greater Indo-West Pacific region. Our findings showed that propagule dispersal capabilities, land barriers and ocean currents were drivers of gene flow, and long-distance dispersal was key to connecting fragmented mangrove populations. The second part of the talk describes our work on abiotic stress response in mangroves, especially at the species range limits. Current understanding of the molecular mechanism underlying stress response points toward diverging strategies, even among closely related species. These studies will be important in understanding the adaptive potential of mangroves under future climate scenarios. The third part of this talk focuses on recent application of environmental DNA (eDNA) as an effective biomonitoring tool in mangroves. Our findings demonstrated the dynamic distribution of fish species, the adaptation of temperate eDNA protocols in tropical waters, and the importance of bioregionalization in designing global studies. Finally, the talk will elucidate on an on-going research in ZMT, as part of a NAM-ZMT Fellowship hosted by Dr. Véronique Helfer.

Bio

Alison Wee is an Associate Professor at the University of Nottingham Malaysia (UNM). For the past 15 years, she has worked on the biogeography, ecology and conservation of coastal ecosystems, specifically mangroves, with the primary goal of understanding their historical and future response to global change using molecular approaches.

Alison obtained her BSc degree in Life Sciences (2009) and PhD degree in Biological Sciences (2013) from the National University of Singapore. She was a postdoctoral fellow in Chiba University, Japan (2014) and the Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, China (Dec 2015). From 2016 - 2020, she led the Ecological Genomics Team at the College of Forestry, Guangxi University (China). Her research has been supported by SEAMEO BIOTROP, the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Asia-Pacific Network for Global Change Research, among others. Throughout her career, she has published >35 scientific articles and successfully graduated five MSc and two PhD students. In 2022, she was awarded the L’ORÉAL-UNESCO National Program for Women in Science Award (Malaysia) for her work on environmental DNA.


 Zoom link for the talk: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86790103582?pwd=Q41t1Hm0P17uqAzEKV34235gl9No3b.1