We use ultra-deep imaging from the IAC Stripe 82 Legacy Project to study the surface photometry of 22 nearby, face-on to moderately inclined spiral galaxies. The reprocessed and co-added SDSS/Stripe 82 imaging allows us to probe down to 29–30 r′-mag/arcsec2 and thus reach into the very faint outskirts of the galaxies. We find extended stellar haloes in over half of our sample galaxies, and truncations in three of them. The presence of stellar haloes and truncations is mutually exclusive, and we argue that the presence of a stellar halo can hide a truncation. We find that the onset of the halo and the truncation scales tightly with galaxy size. We highlight the importance of a proper analysis of the extended wings of the point spread function (PSF), finding that around half the light at the faintest levels is from the inner regions of a galaxy, though not the nucleus, re-distributed to the outskirts by the PSF. We discuss implications of this effect for future deep imaging surveys, such as with the LSST.

We compare forests dominated by Gilbertiodendron dewevrei at the Dja Biosphere Reserve (Cameroon) with adjacent high-diversity mixed forests in terms of tree-species composition and stand structure, in order to understand the co-occurrence of mixed forest tree species in the monodominant forest. A total of 18 1-ha permanent plots were established in the two forest types. In each plot, all trees with dbh ≥10 cm were identified as were those <10 cm dbh within a subsample of 300 m2. Species richness was significantly different between the two forest types. Mixed forest had an average of 109 species ha−1 for trees ≥10 cm dbh and 137 species for trees <10 cm dbh. By contrast, G. dewevrei-dominated forest had an average of 47 species ha−1 (≥10 cm dbh) and 92 species (<10 cm dbh). There was no significant difference in terms of stem density of the trees with dbh <10 cm between the two forests (mixed: 3.7 stems m−2; monodominant: 3.1 stems m−2). As G. dewevrei is a shade-tolerant species that can regenerate under its own shade, its higher stem density and basal area can reduce species richness of an area.

A heuristic greedy algorithm is developed for efficiently tiling spatially dense redshift surveys. In its first application to the Galaxy and MassAssembly (GAMA) redshift survey we find it rapidly improves the spatial uniformity of our data, and naturally corrects for any spatial bias introduced by the 2dF multi-object spectrograph. We make conservative predictions for the final state of the GAMA redshift survey after our final allocation of time, and can be confident that even if worse than typical weather affects our observations, all of our main survey requirements will be met.

To assess the impact of habitat fragmentation on tropical avian communities, we sampled lowland forest birds on six land-bridge islands and two mainland forest sites in Lake Kenyir, Peninsular Malaysia using timed point counts, hypothesizing that insectivorous birds are the worst affected guild. We used an information-theoretic approach to evaluate the effects of area, isolation, primary dietary guild (omnivore, frugivore and insectivore) and their interactions in predicting species richness, abundance and diversity. Our analysis showed that a model that considered the effects of area, dietary guild and their interaction best explained observed patterns of species richness. But a model considering both area and dietary guild best explained the variation in abundance. Notably, insectivorous birds were singled out as the dietary guild most sensitive to fragmentation, followed by frugivorous and omnivorous birds and hence provide support for our hypothesis. Assemblages of insectivorous birds were clearly depauperate on anthropogenic forest islands in Lake Kenyir and are consistent with forest fragmentation studies in the Neotropics. Given their specialized foraging ecology and diversity, conservation of intact communities of insectivorous bird guilds in Malaysia will be critical for maintaining predator–prey interactions in lowland tropical forests.