Singapore's Biodiversity

Singapore takes great pride in their green city-state. It is not surprise this includes their many trees and the conservation and knowledge of them. Thought of as a major city, more than half of the area is covered in trees! Here is a quick sampling of some of the trees and their identification found in Singapore. This list is in no way, inclusive, but also includes resources to learn more.

The Nature Society (Singapore) designed an app called the Singapore Butterfly Guide. I have downloaded the app on an Apple OS as there is no option to download for Android users. If you read my review on the Singapore Bird Guide, this will look very similar as the program design is essentially identical. When you open the app after your download, the ‘ BROWSE’ page appears in the Gallery View with thumbnails of the butterflies, it is already very visually appealing and makes me want to search for butterflies! However, if you prefer to view the page differently, there is a drop-down list for other options to view the butterflies. Beside this, you can also pick what butterflies you would like to view, from ‘Show All’  down to ‘Orange Skippers’ and everything in between. At the bottom of the page, you can see what category you are in the “BROWSE’ section, and we’ll look at each in detail. In the ‘SEARCH’ section, you can type in a butterfly in the search bar at the top, or try narrowi...

I am reviewing the Nature Society (Singapore)’s Singapore Bird Guide App. The first thing I’ll mention about this app and it’s sister app, the Singapore Butterfly Guide, is that they are only available on Apple products, there is not an equivalent for the Android OS. That said, when you open the Singapore Bird Guide, it opens to the ‘BROWSE’ page, where you can click from a pull down how you want to view the birds, as well as what birds you want to see based on residency or visitors and those in between. These are both nice features depending on how you visually would like to view the birds as well as if you know the potential birds migration patterns.  If you click on the ‘SEARCH’ option, you can type a bird into the search bar but you can also click on its rarity or habitat, if you know those. If you then click on the bird you search, the result page is very user friendly. This page will provide the common name, scientific name, a picture (identified as either male or female), it...

A presentation about invasive species and taking a look at a small sampling of those found within Singapore. 

Singapore is located near the equator and therefore does not experience the typical seasons of a more temperate location. They do experience monsoons and therefore their seasons are more thought about in the wet versus dry season, with an inter-monsoonal season between. There are a handful of resources that provide information on climate and the current weather conditions for Singapore, including: Meteorological Service Singapore , available at: http://www.weather.gov.sg/climate-climate-of-singapore/ Image: Screenshot of site, showing climate and weather information for Singapore.  They provide information and detailed maps, charts, and tables for the seasons, rainfall, humidity, surface wind, visibility, sunshine duration, cloud cover, and the records at the climate station. On this page, they have links for annual reports, climate maps (for temperature and rainfall), and climate trends.  The Meteorological Service Singapore also has a section for Weather, including forecasts...

Using the USDA Web Soil Survey was a new experience for me. I have not used a program like this before, gathering data on the soil structure and related aspects of a study area. Listening to the video tutorial was very thorough and had information on the different tabs, exploring through the survey’s information. With my limited knowledge of soils, I found some of the information overwhelming and the video touched on using the Glossary, a tab along the top of the site, to better understand. I thought having the Glossary was very helpful, but also a little overwhelming as there were so many terms. But the language was clear and concise, so definitely an added bonus.  My study area of Singapore was not a part of the Web Soil Survey as it is not a part of the United States. So to gain a better understanding of the resource, I used where I lived in SW Washington. It was interesting to learn about the different soils that make up the area as well and understand what those soils mean, i...