Into the Peat Swamp: A Journey Through Wood Decay

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 wood can remain on the forest floor for years or even decades. During this time, it continues to store carbon, provides habitat and resources for fungi, microbes and invertebrates, and gradually releases nutrients back into the ecosystem as it decomposes. Understanding how quickly this happens is particularly important in tropical peat swamp forests, which store enormous quantities of carbon and whose ecological processes are closely linked to hydrology. This raises an important question: Does historical drainage change how dead wood decomposes in tropical peat swamp forests?

Using wood vectors to measure decomposition

The experiment began in 2023, when the research team established a dead wood survey across the Badas peat swamp forest. Within each study plot, the team searched for naturally occurring dead wood representing combinations of four decay classes and four size classes. Fast forward to 2026, we returned to Badas to relocate the tagged dead wood and continue drilling the wood and measure the mass lost (g).

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/88e902_d5e35eac5ecc4478980f89f705583234/1080p/mp4/file.mp4

Our wood core method: Drilling the wood and collecting the wood shaving from the field. Video by Li Yuen, 2026

Back in the laboratory in Institute for Biodiversity and Environmental Research (IBER), Universiti Brunei Darussalam, we processed the collected wood shavings for drying and weighing.

Collected wood shavings were dried and weighed to record the mass lost. Photo by Li Yuen, 2026.

This fieldwork would not have been possible without the invaluable support of our collaborators and field crews. We are particularly grateful to our on the ground team—Boy, Fendy, Ronnie, Pudek, and Calvin for their hard work and assistance throughout the fieldwork. We also extend our sincere thanks to our local collaborators, Prof. Rahayu and Dr. Salwana, for their coordination and support, and to Nurun and Zul for facilitating laboratory access and providing assistance during the laboratory work.