Peter S. Ashton Sarawak fieldwork papers

Related Titles

Series: Biodiversity Heritage Library Field Notes Project

External Resources

Collection guide: Peter S. Ashton Sarawak fieldwork papers, 1963-1968. Harvard University Botany Libraries

By

Ashton, Peter S. (Peter Shaw), 1934- , author
Ashton, Peter S. (Peter Shaw), 1934- , author

Type

Collection

Material

Archival material

Publication info

Notes

Descriptions of trees and site descriptions of 105, 0.6 ha plots sited at 13 localities representing the diversity of geology, throughout lowland Sarawak. Includes tree data, maps of the 105 sample plots, indicating altitude, plot shape, disposition in relation to topography and location of soil pits, profiles diagrams representing the structure of the forests at each of the 13 sites where the plots were clustered.

Includes maps, family by family, of the location and identity of all trees exceeding 20 cm dbh in a natural arboretum at Semengoh, West Sarawak. This forest, now legally designated a nature reserve, is all that remains of a major regional (NW Borneo) forest type, rich in endemic species. Also includes maps of a proposed network of National Parks for the Malaysian state of Sarawak, proposed by Ashton and J.A.R. Anderson. Most were subsequently successfully legislated by the Sarawak state government after Sarawak joined Malaysia. Unusually in the tropics, perhaps uniquely, these parks were proposed on botanical criteria: known species' distributions extrapolated from knowledge of their edaphic/geological distributions. Still in large part intact (unlike parks in neighboring nations), they are estimated to conserve at least two thirds of the indigenous flora, and therefore of the overall biodiversity which is dependent on it.

Data corresponds to the species reference collection of fallen leaf ecological vouchers, attached to cards which are ordered by family and numbered species on separate cards. The species in turn by lettered site (sites thus lettered indicated in a map, figure 3.9 in chapter 3 in "On the forests of tropical Asia: lest the memory fade") filed in the Harvard University Herbaria.

Subjects

Ashton, Peter S , Fieldwork (research) , Forests and forestry , Malaysia , Maps , Research , Sarawak , Southeast Asia

BHL Collections

BHL Field Notes Project

Language

English

Identifiers

OCLC: 980369517
Wikidata: https://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q51406413