Matthew S. Luskin

PhD Candidate, Graduate Student

Education

BA Economics, U.C.L.A. (2008)

BA Geography/ Environmental Studies, U.C.L.A. (2008)

Research Interests

Tropical Ecology and Conservation Biology

Research Description

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Tropical Forest Conversion to Oil Palm

Oil palm expansion may be the single most immediate threat to terrestrial biodiversity with staggering growth across the tropics. Specifically, over nine million hectares of oil palm plantations continue to sprawl through Malaysia and Indonesia, fueling the highest rates of deforestation worldwide. In fact, oil palm has become the largest perennial cropland area in the world, inciting widespread concern for its environmental impacts. However, recent public concerns have overlooked the indirect effects of oil palm expansion on remaining forests, including as fragmentation, edge effects, increased hunting pressure and the fruit subsidies provided by the prolific oil palm trees. These factors are likely simultaneously operating to compromise the ecological integrity of remaining forests in Southeast Asia.

To address these problems, we set up a sampling grid in Peninsular Malaysia in 2010 across native forests and adjacent oil palm plantations in order to understand how plantation age, size and management affects biodiversity and ecosystem services within the oil palm landscape (Luskin & Potts 2011; others in prep on arthropod abundances, reptiles and bats).

Our future work will focus on indirect impacts of oil palm expansion, particularly, altered food webs and trophic cascades associated with the loss of top predators (tigers) in fragmented forests. Things become further perturbed by the influx of oil palm fruit resources in plantations. The most obvious result has been the development of the highest densities of wild pigs ever recorded around plantations. The secondary impacts of pig overpopulations include disturbed forest dynamics (e.g. seed mortality, etc) and increased hunting pressure from local people, with obvious implications for conservation and livelihoods.

Between field seasons, we are working on conceptual models and methods to prioritize wildlife friendly farming systems in tropical countries, including those that can be used for oil palm.

Matt's undergraduate research uncovered a similar agricultural-biodiversity process in the Yasawa archipelago of Fiji, where native frugivorous bats were persisting despite deforestation of 97% of the islands due to feeding on farmland fruit (Luskin 2010).

Selected Publications

Luskin, M.S. & M.D. Potts. 2011. Microclimate and habitat heterogeneity through the oil palm lifecycle. Basic and Applied Ecology 12, 540–551.

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Luskin, M.S. 2010. Flying Foxes Prefer to Forage in Farmland in a Tropical Dry Forest Landscape Mosaic in Fiji. Biotropica 42(2): 246–250.

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Reviewed Works

 

Honors and Awards

• US National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship - on tenure from 2010-2013
• Magna Cum Laude, Highest Honors, Double Major (U.C.L.A.) - 2008