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Welcome to the Global Serpentine Ecology Database |
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In order to submit publications or edit content (articles), registration and logging-in is a requirement. All articles on the website can be edited and saved and new content can be added. Some sections are easily edited and added by all users, while other sections will go through peer-review before changes are published online. It is also possible to comment on each others texts. This will hopefully generate vast amounts of reliable knowledge on serpentine ecology around the globe by a principle of ‘integrative reflective and self-corrective’ authoring by a multitude of different experts from different backgrounds/disciplines. This database is live, but is a work in progress and therefore needs to be filled with information. You can upload and list your own papers, articles and theses, of which already some 200 are posted. The main aim is to provide an extensive, searchable, online resource about serpentine localities around the globe. At the moment about 500 localities in 6 continents and 38 countries are listed. We would like to invite you to make a write-up of one locality that you are familiar/knowledgeable about and post it to us at:
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). Your entry will be placed (under your name as author) in the respective place on the website. In a later stage it will be possible to edit and add to these entries. |
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Metal-tolerant ecotypes of Deschampsia klossi growing over copper-mineralised spoils at Grasberg Mine, Papua, Indonesia. Photo by Mansour Ekradi.
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Extensive ultramafic vegetation over Mount Tamboyukon, Sabah, Malaysia. Photo by Antony van der Ent.
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Ultramafics at Mt Kinabalu, Malaysia |
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Mount Kinabalu is probably one of the most striking sites with ultramafic ecology in Southeast Asia. Here ultramafic ecology occurs in lowland (<300m) up to alpine regions (>3500m) in just a 10km gradient around the granite mountain. Ultramafic ecology occurs at an area of about 3500 square kilometres in Sabah. Ultramafic rock is distributed in Sabah in a range running northeast to southwest. The distribution can be divided into four main groups. Ranging from Lahad Datu with Mount Silam, Mount Beeston, Mount Nicola, Danum valley, Mount Tambuku, Tabawan Island and Saker Island followed by Sandakan with Mount Tawai, Bidu-bidu Hill and Imbak River. Then Ranau with Mount Mount Tambuykon, Bukit Hampuan, Bukit Babi and Marai Parai, and Kudat with Banggi Island and Malawali Island.
It is currently estimated that 5,000-6,000 vascular plant species, comprising of over 200 families and 1,000 genera (Beaman et al., 2003) are found in Mount Kinabalu making it arguably the richest flora in the world. This extraordinary diversity occurs in an area of only 1,200 km2. Three attitudinally differentiated ultramafic vegetations at elevations 1700m and above may be discerned (Kitayama, 1991) in (Repin, 1998)): 1) characterised by Tristania elliptica dominance 2) characterised by Leptospermum flavescens-Tristania dominance 3) characterised by Leptospermum recurvum-Dacrydiun gibbsiae dominance.
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