Bornean tropical rainforests are characterized by the salient height, the extremely species-rich diversities of plants, the community-wide synchronized plant reproduction. The biological characteristics of many arthropod species have not been elucidated well there. In particular, due to difficulties in reaching the upper canopy layers, diversity and ecological properties of arthropods inhabiting there and the structure of food webs that are woven by the arthropods still remain to be investigated.
In Lambir Hills National Park located in the north-western Borneo, natural histories and ecology of plants and arthropods have been intensively studied since 1992 by using a canopy-access system, which is composed of several tree towers, aerial walk-ways between pairs of emergent trees, and a canopy crane that are designed to make it easy for researchers to observe various organisms inhabiting the upper canopy layers. In addition, several types of routine censuses have been conducted to determine and monitor the spatial distributions, growth, reproductive phenology and mortality of canopy-composing trees and to monitor the temporal trends in arthropods. In this talk, I will brief our research activities there during the last quarter century, and will show a few future plans on diversity and ecology of arthropods in Lambir Hills National Park.