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Cambodian Journal of Natural History Masked fi nfoots Fire ecology in dry forests Lessons learned from community nest guarding Eight years of camera trap photographs July 2012 Vol 2012 No. 1 Cambodian Journal of Natural History ISSN 2226–969X Editors Email: [email protected] • Dr Jenny C. Daltry, Senior Conservation Biologist, Fauna & Flora International. • Dr Neil M. Furey, Head of Academic Development, Fauna & Flora International: Cambodia Programme. • Hang Chanthon, Former Vice-Rector, Royal University of Phnom Penh. • Dr Carl Traeholt, Chief Lecturer, Centre for Biodiversity Conservation, Royal University of Phnom Penh. International Editorial Board • Dr Stephen J. Browne, Fauna & Flora International, • Dr Sovanmoly Hul, Muséum National d’Histoire Singapore. Naturelle, Paris, France. • Dr Martin Fisher, Editor of Oryx – The International • Dr Andy L. Maxwell, World Wide Fund for Nature, Journal of Conservation, Cambridge, U.K. Cambodia. • Dr L. Lee Grismer, La Sierra University, California, • Dr Jörg Menzel, University of Bonn, Germany. USA. • Dr Brad Pett itt , Murdoch University, Australia. • Dr Knud E. Heller, Nykøbing Falster Zoo, Denmark. • Dr Campbell O. Webb, Harvard University Herbaria, USA. Other peer reviewers for this volume • Dr John G. Blake, University of Florida, Gainesville, • Dr Maurice Kott elat, Cornol, Switz erland. USA. • Dr Hisashi Matsubayashi, Universiti Malaysia Sabah, • Dr Vincent Bonhomme, French Institute of Pondicherry, Malaysia. India. • James F. Maxwell, Chiang Mai University, Thailand. • Prof. David M.J.S. Bowman, University of Tasmania, • François S. Mey, Paris, France. Hobart, Australia. • Dr Sarah Milne, Australian National University, • Tom Clements, Wildlife Conservation Society, London, Canberra, Australia. U.K. • Dr Hiroyuki Motomura, Kagoshima University • Leslie Day, Koh Samui, Thailand. Museum, Kagoshima, Japan. • Dr Alex Diment, Fauna & Flora International, • Prof. Walter J. Rainboth, University of Wisconsin Cambridge, U.K. Oshkosh, USA. • Rory A. Dow, Naturalis Biodiversity Center, Leiden, The • Dr Katja Rembold, Georg-August-University of Netherlands. Gö tt ingen, Germany. • Dr Will J. Duckworth, Vientiane, Lao PDR. • Chris R. Shepherd, TRAFFIC South East Asia, Petaling • Jonathan Eames, BirdLife International, Hanoi, Vietnam. Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia • Jeremy Holden, Fauna & Flora International, Phnom • Andrew Tordoff , Conservation International, Penh, Cambodia. Washington DC, USA. The Cambodian Journal of Natural History (ISSN 2226–969X) is a free journal published by the Centre for Biodiversity Conservation, Royal University of Phnom Penh. The Centre for Biodiversity Conservation is a non-profi t making unit dedicated to training Cambodian biologists and to the study and conservation of Cambodian biodiversity. Cover photo: A tiger in Phnom Tamao Wildlife Rescue Centre (© Jeremy Holden). The last known camera trap photo- graph of a wild Indochinese tiger in Cambodia is featured by Tom Gray et al., in this issue. Editorial 1 Guest Editorial – To shed light on dark corners Martin Fisher Fauna & Flora International, Jupiter House, Station Road, Cambridge CB1 2JD, U.K. Email martin.fi sher@fauna-fl ora.org So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, fi nd that the reviewers have severely critiqued our work So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. and our writing and found all the errors that we couldn’t see, blinded as we were by innumerable drafts and too much coff ee. Nevertheless, it is my experience, both as Alumni of any of my Writing for Conservation workshops an author and editor, that “gett ing published” is not par- will recognize the fi nal two lines from Sonnet 18 by the ticularly diffi cult. The majority of manuscripts are not English poet and playwright William Shakespeare. I use rejected because the research is of a poor standard or the it to illustrate how something beautiful – in this case a writing incomprehensible, but rather because the author poem on the immortality of the subject of the writer’s has erred in his or her choice of journal. admiration – can be expressed within the constraints In the Writing for Conservation workshops that I off er of 14 lines arranged in three four-line verses and a fi nal with the Conservation Leadership Programme, this is couplet, and with exactly 10 syllables in every line. This the fi rst piece of advice that I off er: there are c. 150 peer- form, sometimes referred to as a Shakespearean sonnet, reviewed journals in the fi elds of ecology, conservation provides me with a convenient analogy to the challenge and natural history, and you need to research carefully of writing a scientifi c article: how can you arrange your the contents of a range of potentially suitable journals hypotheses, ideas, spreadsheets, statistical analyses, before you actually start to write. Every journal has interpretation and speculation into a presentable, coher- its own character and preferences, and your choice of ent form within the stricture of the formal sections of a journal will infl uence how you tell your story. My second scientifi c article? piece of advice is to learn how to tell that story. You are Why should you do this anyway? Wouldn’t it be bett er not writing about love in 14 lines of 10 syllables each, but to complete the report for your funder and move on to you are nevertheless going to tell a story, and the number the next project or to whatever else is demanding your of words that you can use, and how you structure them, att ention? It would certainly be easier. History doesn’t will be prescribed by the journal you choose. There are tell us whether Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 was writt en articles that do not have the now-traditional structure of eff ortlessly in a few hours of inspired work or whether Introduction – Methods – Results – Discussion. One of the 14 lines were a labour of days, weeks, or longer. There my favourites is the seminal paper by Hutchinson (1959), are some gifted authors who can sit down with a strong which all conservationists should read (it is even bereft of cup of coff ee on a Saturday morning and – many drafts the label Introduction). But most of our articles are con- and much caff eine later – have a manuscript ready for strained to the required structure. submission to a journal by Monday morning. For most of Both novice and experienced authors encounter prob- us, however, the preparation of the fi rst draft of an article lems correctly ordering their logic and their thoughts is a lengthy and diffi cult aff air. within this structure. Deciding whether a particular idea But whether it takes you a weekend or a month, you belongs in the Introduction or Discussion, for example, eventually fi nish your article. We all have reason to be can be problematical. Ensuring that you don’t slip into proud when we send the result of our toil – which started discursive material in the Results can be diffi cult (hint: in uncomfortable fi eld conditions and ended when we if you cite any references in this section you have almost clicked the submit butt on – to a peer-reviewed journal. certainly slipped into the Discussion by mistake). There However, knowing that rejection rates are high and pre- is no magical wand or software tool to help you plan and suming that editors are looking for reasons to reject arti- write your article. No matt er whether you are writing cles because the volume of submissions is ever increasing, with a pencil or using the latest Ultrabook, the challenge anxious authors scan their inbox nervously for an e-mail is the same. from the Editor. When we fi nally receive a decision we Cambodian Journal of Natural History 2012 (1) 1-2 © Centre for Biodiversity Conservation, Phnom Penh 2 Editorial Once you have grappled successfully with the your story. Most of the 15,000 articles being published mechanics and art – for it is both – of scientifi c writing, each year are about particular species or places, yet also and your fi rst article has been published, you will be both have a wider relevance. But if the title is mundane, it is elated and relieved. I still remember my fi rst published unlikely to att ract anybody except the dedicated special- article (Fisher & Dixon, 1986) with fondness. But was it ist. With hindsight I’m sure that was one of the problems worth the eff ort? Has anybody actually read it? I can’t with Fisher & Dixon (1986). To put it another way: the answer that question, but Google Scholar indicates that it title is uninformative and unatt ractive. has been cited only 10 times: hardly indicative of a large As an editor I encourage the writing and submission audience. If, for the purposes of a crude calculation, we of articles. I don’t want to talk myself out of a job here, assume the mean number of articles published annu- but I would like to see us all publishing less rather than ally in each of the c. 150 peer-reviewed journals is 100, c. more. In achieving the publication of a vast number of 15,000 articles are being published each year in our area peer-reviewed articles annually, I don’t think that either of interest. I believe it was once said that the English poet, the quality of our science or of our writing has improved. critic and philosopher, and Shakespeare expert, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, born in 1772, was the last man to have This leads me to make two recommendations. Firstly, read everything published in English. But even such a whether writing our fi rst or our tenth article for a peer- hungry reader could not make a dent in the number of reviewed journal, for most of us it is a tortuous experi- scientifi c articles now being published each year.