The costs of protecting the big blue
Our oceans are in big trouble. Worldwide declines in marine wildlife, including the collapse of several fisheries, and the deterioration of marine habitats, prompted calls at the 2012 Global Workshop of the Convention on Biological Diversity for the establishment of a global system of marine protected areas (MPAs). At this…
For the love of field ecology
The first rule for teaching ecology: “Get them outside; early and often”. David Schindler, University of Alberta. Recent commentary on the ECOLOG-L email list (a US-based ecology discussion group) has been lamenting the decline in field ecology training at several (but not all) universities in the US, and noting similar…
New Zealanders know little about New Zealand nature
I’ve been thinking lately about the consequences of the disconnect between New Zealanders’ conservation ethic and conservation knowledge. We New Zealanders are typically supportive of conservation, especially in our national parks. In 2010, tens of thousands of people protested down Auckland’s Queen Street when the Government contemplated mining in national…
Measuring how clean and green New Zealand is
This blog post was written by postgraduate student Stephanie Heinicke as part of the course, Research Methods in Ecology (Ecol 608). Stephanie is one of three students that revisits a Lincoln University research area on calculating the ecological impact of New Zealanders published in the late 1990s. New Zealand markets itself as a…
Human footprint tracking is tricky!
This blog post was written by postgraduate student Sophie Papanek as part of the course, Research Methods in Ecology (Ecol 608). Sophie is one of three students that revisits a Lincoln University research area on calculating the ecological impact of New Zealanders published in the late 1990s. Field guides need…
Four more years! A link to the species in EcoLincNZ
Yellow-eyed Penguin EcoLincNZ has turned four. It just seems like yesterday that we discussed the use of blogs in our weekly ecology and evolution discussion group and decided that we should give it a go. It’s been 130 posts since the first one on the different meanings of ‘Gondwanan’ and…
New Zealand ghost moths: the results from a molecular phylogeny
This blog post was written by postgraduate student Hamish Patrick as part of the course, Research Methods in Ecology (Ecol 608). Hamish revisits a Lincoln University study on New Zealand moth evolution published in 1999 and assesses the progress made since then. Hepialidae commonly known as ghost moths are a…
Not so different
This blog post was written by postgraduate student Rohith C. Yalamanchali as part of the course, Research Methods in Ecology (Ecol 608). Australia and New Zealand: different environments, similar weeds.Sourced from Google Earth. Invasion biologists use the term “naturalisation” to describe when introduced species form self-sustaining wild populations. A subset…
