The Tropical Ecology and Entomology (TEE) Lab from Asian School of the Environment, College of Science, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore recently joined the BioBlitz at Gardens by the Bay, bringing together field surveys, community engagement, and new technologies to explore and showcase Singapore’s fascinating invertebrate biodiversity. As part of the BioBlitz, our team led dragonfly and damselfly surveys around the Gardens. Participants joined our survey leads t

Hi, I am Bertram, a Year 3 undergraduate studying Environmental Earth Systems Science in ASE. At the end of my Year 2 undergraduate studies, it was finally time for my credit-bearing internship. And as someone who enjoys research and insects, there was no better place for me to intern than the TEE Lab (thank you Prof Eleanor!). Being an intern in the TEE Lab meant that I got to help out with multiple different projects, from DNA extraction and photographing tiny beetles to cu

Southeast Asia is a hyper-diverse and rapidly urbanizing region. However, the impacts of urbanization on the region's insect communities are still greatly understudied. In our recent publication in Biotropica's Special Issue: Urban Ecosystems, Ecology, and Evolution in the Tropics 2026, we investigated the impacts of urbanization on Singapore's dung beetle communities - an ecologically important and ideal bioindicator group. Deployed flight-interception trap and baited pitfal

Hello! I’m Gladys and I have recently completed my Final Year Project (FYP) on insect portrayals in children’s books in Singapore libraries. With recent research discoveries and reviews highlighting the alarming rate of global insect biodiversity decline, the portrayal of insects in media such as children’s books has become more crucial than ever to shape children’s perceptions of insects, raise awareness of its ecological importance, and encourage insect conservation. Thus,

From the end of July to mid-August 2026, Dr. Li Yuen from the Tropical Ecology and Entomology (TEE) Lab, Asian School of the Environment (ASE), College of Science (CoS), NTU embarked on fieldwork in the tropical peat swamp forests of Brunei Darussalam. The work forms part of ongoing research to understand how dead wood decomposes in peat swamp forests and how this process may respond to historical drainage disturbance. Fallen trees at Badas T1P3 (photo: Li Yuen, 2026) Dead wo

We are proud to see TEE Lab's Dr Ong Xin Rui featured in Singapore's largest Chinese-language newspaper, 联合早报 Lianhe Zaobao! Lianhe Zaobao article. Published on 4 September 2026. In this recent 街访街坊 (Street Interview with Locals), Xin Rui reminisced about how she first ventured into the world of dung beetles after losing a game of rock-paper-scissors as an undergraduate. She also shared about our recent study "Using Metabarcoding Techniques to Map Multiple Dung Beetle-Vertebr

We are excited to have our recent study "Using Metabarcoding Techniques to Map Multiple Dung Beetle-Vertebrate iDNA Networks in a Southeast Asian Forest" being featured in The Straits Times! The Straits Times article. Published on 24 August 2026. We demonstrated how dung beetles can be used as sources of vertebrate DNA, where we detected up to 18 native vertebrate species from the forests of Singapore's Central Catchment Nature Reserve. Moving forward, we are exploring a more

In late August 2026, the TEE Lab was honoured to host Associate Professor Benoit Guénard for a very fruitful visit. Benoit is an Associate Professor in The University of Hong Kong and the founding director of the Hong Kong Biodiversity Museum. He also founded the impressive Global Ant Biodiversity Informatics (GABI) Project, which has led to multiple high-impact publications that exemplify the importance of having baseline taxonomy and natural history data to advance biodiver

I'm Charmaine Ng, a Year 1 student at ASE. From June to July 2026, I had the opportunity to join the TEE Lab and work on my project titled "Effects of Habitat Disturbance on Mammal Diversity and Community Composition in Sabah, Borneo". My project is about analysing mammal camera trap data to find out how mammal species richness, species diversity, and community composition differs across a disturbance gradient of Sabah forests. It is part of the Stability of Altered Forest Ec

Saproxylic insects, insects dependent on dying or dead wood for survival, are very important in performing various ecosystem functions and services. Saproxylic insects range from Stag Beetle larvae that feed on decaying deadwood, to social parasites that live with ants nesting in deadwood. Other than carrying out nutrient cycling as they decompose deadwood, some saproxylic insects are pollinators (e.g. flower chafers and some longhorn beetles), and some are important food sou

Hi, I’m Shannon, a Year 1 student studying Environmental Earth System Science at ASE. From June to July 2026, I had the opportunity to take part in the Summer Research programme, where I had my first foray into environmental science research. This is me with my friends at the TEE lab! My project was about investigating the composition of below-ground invertebrate communities in different plot types around Central Catchment Nature Reserve. Soil samples were extracted from diff

The Tropical Ecology and Entomology Lab (TEE Lab) got acquainted with the team from Gardens by the Bay Sustainability Office when we got invited to their BioBlitz in 2025. Following that, we moved onto partnering with them to monitor nocturnal insects within the Gardens under AMBER Project. Two systems, Automated Monitoring of Insects (AMI) and LepiSense, were deployed in the Gardens late 2025. The data collection was recently concluded and we were invited to share the preli

Species interact with each other through complex ecological networks. The structure of these networks can be altered by anthropogenic drivers, such as agricultural expansion and climate change, which may impact ecosystem functioning. Increasingly, molecular techniques are being used to monitor biodiversity and construct ecological networks, circumventing the constraints associated with using conventional means to document species interactions over time and space. Field survey

From 3-5 June 2026, our research fellow, Dr Ong Xin Rui, participated in the 6th Conservation Asia Congress (CAC Nepal 2026) that was held in the bustling city of Kathmandau, Nepal. As part of the Asian chapter of the Society of Conservation Biology (SCB), this year's congress is considered a homecoming, where the first SCB Asia regional conference was held in the same venue more than two decades ago. Under the theme “Harmonising Biodiversity and Human Well-being in Asia,” th

Large mammalian herbivores are important keystone species that are increasingly threatened by hunting and global environmental change. Their loss can trigger cascading impacts on other organisms that rely on them, including dung beetles—ecologically important insects rely on the feces of larger animals for feeding and nesting. By processing and burying dung, dung beetles also contribute towards multiple ecosystem services, including nutrient recycling and seed dispersal. Scie

Recently, our PhD student Nethmi from the TEE Lab, NTU, had the opportunity to deliver a public talk to undergraduate students from the Department of Natural Resources, Faculty of Applied Sciences, at Sabaragamuwa University of Sri Lanka. This opportunity was kindly given by Prof. Enoka P. Kudavidange. During the session, she shared her research journey and introduced the fascinating world of dung beetles, highlighting their ecological importance, distribution patterns, and f

Insects are responding rapidly to global environmental change, yet understanding why insect populations change remains one of the greatest challenges in ecology and conservation. While monitoring efforts increasingly reveal shifts in insect abundance, diversity, biomass, and distributions, observed patterns are often shaped by multiple interacting drivers, biological mechanisms, and even the way insects are detected and measured. In our new paper, Predictive entomology: A c

On 6 May 2026, we conducted a focused mini workshop with local communities in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah to gather input on the Riparian Decision Tree (RiTREE), a planning tool designed to guide decisions on riparian buffer widths. This session marked an important step in ensuring that community perspectives are meaningfully integrated into the tool. Between 2016 and 2021, a series of meetings, multi-stakeholder workshops, and collaborative discussions brought together scientists,

From 28–30 April 2026, over 80 participants from various agencies gathered in Sabah for the Tropical Insect Workshop. Organised by the Sabah Forestry Department through its Forest Research Centre (FRC) in Sepilok, the workshop—titled “Small Wonders of the Rainforests: Understanding Tropical Insects” brought together researchers, practitioners, and government officers with a shared interest in tropical biodiversity. Top: Group photo with all the guests, speakers, and participa

We are super proud of our PhD student, Jasmine Ong, who has successfully passed her qualifying examinations recently! Jasmine is supervised by Associate Professor Kim Hie Lim and Associate Professor Eleanor Slade and is studying the climate resilience of tropical dung beetles. Jasmine with her PhD supervisors, Associate Professor Kim Hie Lim and Associate Professor Eleanor Slade. Photo: Shuna Maekawa, 2026. For her qualifying exam, she presented a phylogenetic study on Cathar