The prospect of micropropagating Gonystylus bancanus (Miq.) Kurz, a tropical peat swamp forest timber species through tissue culture technique - Review

Abstract

Grippin A., Nor Aini A.S., Nor Akhirrudin M., Hazandy A.H., Sures Kumar M., Ismail P. (2018): The prospect of micropropagating Gonystylus bancanus (Miq.) Kurz, a tropical peat swamp forest timber species through tissue culture technique -Review. J. For. Sci., 64: 1-8.Gonystylus bancanus (Miquel) Kurz is one of the most valuable timber species in tropical peat swamp forest. Its timber is widely used for furniture, decorative cabinets and interior decoration. Due to its higher demand, G. bancanus continues to be harvested which leads to its disappearance in the wild. This is worsened by the fact that germination rates in the wild are very poor due to rapid insect and fungal infestation. Even though vegetative propagation via stem cuttings has been successful, proper protocols on tissue culture need to be explored as a viable way of mass production of a large number of planting stock in a relatively shorter time for forest rehabilitation and enrichment planting purposes.

Spatial patterning of Gonystylus brunnescens in eastern Borneo

“…We demonstrate here that juveniles of Gonystylus brunnescens show a distribution that deviates from random and is well described by a Matérn cluster model indicating a clumped spatial pattern. This agrees with anecdotal information suggesting clumped distributions in other Gonystylus species (Shamsuddin, 1996;Grippin et al, 2018) and concurs with numerous other studies in tropical forests where clustered patterns within species appear to be most common (Kohyama et al, 1994;Condit et al, 2000;Wiegand et al, 2009;Nguyen et al, 2016;Siregar, 2017). Although we did not find any evidence of clustering of juveniles around parent trees, the clustered pattern we found could be due to seed hoarding behaviour (Yasuda et al, 2000) which fits with the suggested dispersal agents of Gonystylus that are small to medium-sized birds and rodents (Kevan & Gaskell, 1986).…”

“…Airy Shaw is considered to be dispersed by bats (Kevan & Gaskell, 1986). Whilst there are numerous anecdotal reports of clumped distributions in Gonystylus species (Shamsuddin, 1996;Grippin et al, 2018), this has rarely been quantified although Kohyama et al (1994) showed clumped distribution of mature (>10 cm dbh) Gonystylus forbesii Gilg trees in Sumatra. There are numerous methods to assess spatial patterns in ecological communities (Ripley, 1977;Wiegand & Moloney, 2004;Perry et al, 2006;Law et al, 2009;Szmyt, 2014;Velázquez et al, 2016) and we use here some commonly applied methods allowing a coarse evaluation of whether patterns are clustered, random or regular that allows us to make comparisons with other studies and hypothesise as to the cause of these patterns.…”