Educational talk on mast flowering, fruiting today

The rainforests, especially this year 2019 in Sabah, display a unique mast flowering followed by mast fruiting event once every four to 11 years.

These spectacular events cause an influx of fruits and the wildlife exploit the abundance of fruits in the forest.

Wildlife biologist and tropical forest ecologist Wong Siew Te who is the Sandakan branch chairman of the Sabah Society, will give an educational talk on this year’s unique mast flowering and mast fruiting event at the Sabah Society premises in Damai Plaza here today at 8 pm.

In this talk, Wong will explain the cause, consequences and evolution of the mast fruiting in the rainforest of Borneo and how wildlife respond to the mast flowering and fruiting.

For more information contact Sabah Society secretary Ms Wanji at 017-8677278.

In the seasonal tropics of South-East Asia, entire forests including hundreds of species are known to mast at irregular periods of two–12 years, benefiting wild boars and other fauna.

Understanding fluctuations in plant reproductive investment can constitute a key challenge in ecology, conservation and management. Masting events of trees are such fluctuations.

In conjunction with this unique mast fruiting in the rainforest, Sandakan’s Rainforest Discovery Centre at Sepilok will hold a fruit fiesta this weekend from 9am to 4pm.

There will be educational walking tour for one and half hours at 9am and 3pm. Participants will get to sample local fruits like fresh Benulu, Velvet apple and preserved Bambangan.