The Loyalty of A Collembola Researcher

KOMPAS/RIZA FATHONI

Yayuk Rahayuningsih

“I am the only researcher of Mordilidae, the hexapod from the beetle family.”

This came from an Australian researcher. It triggered Yayuk Rahayuningsih Suhardjono, 68, to become a researcher of the rare object. Then she chose to become a researcher of springtail (Collembola), a hexapod living in the soil. After 10 of years researching, she could say, “I am the only person in ASEAN researching Collembola.”

The object of her research was not glamorous because she said was nobody interested in Collembola. Her work deals with soil and the object of her research is small in size, between 0.1 millimeters and 9 mm. Some are not visible to bare eyes.

“In Indonesia, there are no other researchers. I am a single fighter. In ASEAN, there are no other researcher dealing with the taxonomy,” Yayuk said in Bogor, West Java, on Wednesday.

It is important to research Collembola because of its great role in the ecosystem. The Collembola plays a role in destroying poisonous material. It also functions as an indicator to measure the fertility of soil and control diseases in plants due to fungus.

Yayuk’s first exposure to Collembola took place in 1977. At that time, she was asked by the director of Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) National Biology Institute (LBN) to make use of thousands of plastic cups from a LIPI national sports event that involved all employees from Jakarta, Bandung and Bogor.

“Could you use those plastic cups to trap insects?” asked Setijati Sastrapradja, LBN director at that time.

Yayuk took the challenge. “I put them in the garden of my residence in Baranangsiang [Bogor]. I got many [insects], but most of them were Collembola. It was easy to get them,” she recalled.

Yayuk’s knowledge about Collembola or springtail was very minimal at that time because nobody had done research on the insect.

Yayuk was triggered to research Collembola. “If there was research, I brought plastic cups everywhere, to use as a trap. I collected them in 1977-1978 and got many. But what should I do [with them]?”

She was confused when did a taxonomy and identified the species. Realizing there was no Indonesian that had conducted research on the insect before, she started to contact academic writers who wrote about Collembola.

“I sent letters to them all. I do not remember how many letters I sent,” she said.

The letters were answered, with replies coming from France and Australia, and two from Japan. “From Japan, one of them sent me a microscope,” she added.

Unfortunately, the microscope could not be used because it was not compatible with the facilities at LIPI.

Afterward, a staff of professor Cassagnau from a university in Toulouse, France, who did research on Collembola came to Indonesia. Yayuk started to draw Collemboa in 1983 using a simple microscope that was equipped with a Lucida camera. Seeing the equipment that Yayuk used, Cassagnau’s staff that visited the National Zoology Museum, said: “You cannot become a Collembola researcher if your microscope is like that.”

Yayuk replied, “All I have is this, a simple microscope.”

KOMPAS/RIZA FATHONI

Yayuk Rahayuningsih

Laboratory access

Because the research had no supporting facilities and supervisor,  Yayuk’s boss asked her to stop her research.

But Yayuk did not give up. When the conditions did not improve, there was an offer from France for a four-week training. Australia also offered her to do laboratory research for four weeks in the 1990s.

Yayuk took the offer in Australia. She left her husband and a child in Indonesia to conduct research at Australian National Insect Collection (ANIC) in Canberra for four weeks to complete her dissertation about Collembola Bali-Lombok.

At ANIC, she got access to the laboratory. She worked seven days a week and 24 hours a day.

“I got good facilities. I was given an access card so that I could enter any time. As a visitor, I could enter the laboratory, library and the warehouse to store equipment and specimens. It was like a supermarket; I could just choose and record [specimens]. You could take any thing,” she said, while imagining such facilities in Indonesia.

“The microscope was great that I enjoyed working from 7 a.m. through 10 p.m.,” Yayuk said.

When she returned home in 1991, Yayuk wrote her dissertation.

Her discipline and her position as coordinator of zoology at the National Biology Institute at LIPI gave Yayuk the opportunity to study in other countries. She took a World Bank program through the Green Environment Fund to learn collection management in 13 museums. She toured the Natural History Museum and several other museums in five countries, including Singapore, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Australia, among others.

From the visit, Yayuk learned how to store collections.

“Now, I do not need to go overseas to see an international-standard collection. Here [in Indonesia], our collection is of international standards,” she said.

With a change in management, all 50,000 bottles of collections were relocated from Bogor to Jakarta in 1997. None of them were broken.

After 40 years researching Collembola, Yayuk was the only one researching the insect in Indonesia. Globally, the number of Collembola researchers is still small.

She said she could survive researching Collembola for decades because she liked the job. “Doing something we like does not make us exhausted,” she said.

She is also thankful because her employer does not differentiate between men and women.

“The opportunity to do research is offered transparently. Anyone meets the requirement could join the team,” she said.

KOMPAS/RIZA FATHONI

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Yayuk Rahayuningsih Suhardjono

Husband: Suhardjono, researcher at LIPI

Child: Primadina Banusita

Birthplace/Birthdate: Magelang, Sept. 25, 1950

Education: Primary school Sekolah Rakyat Negeri II Secang, Magelang, Central Java, 1962; Statejunior high school II Sleman, DIY, 1965

; State high school III Yogyakarta, DIY, 1968; Diploma in Biology from UGM (1972)

; Undergraduate from FMIPA UI (1978)

; Doctoral from UI (1992)