Back to the field...

It has been a while since my last post, inexcusable really as there has been a whole wealth of issues going on in the environmental world. PhD work recently however has had to prevail, with my last bout of fieldwork taking precedence.

So yes, I was lucky enough to head back to New Zealand’s South Island to collect the last of my data from the field experiments I set up at the end of last year. Just a three week trip but enough time to allow me to visit all 15 sites (from Nelson down to Dunedin), record how many plants were dead, how many had frost damage and how much herbivory had been going on. Currently my host plant (Macropiper excelsum) has a natural distribution down to s southerly limit at Banks Peninsula. This experiment was designed to investigate whether this plant could exist south of its current distribution. If so, it may indicate that the environment is climatically suitable and there is the possibility that it is not found closer to the poles because its dispersal is being constrained by isolation (i.e. fragmentation) of its associated native forest habitat.


Photo provided by Ben Rodriguez

Having the help of my field assistant Ben was invaluable, he was an absolute star throughout the three weeks, not only assisting with the work in the field but also with all the post-field processing. All of the data was collected in over a whorl-wind tour of the sites and we managed to get a significant amount of the herbivory assessments done at Lincoln University (thank you to all of those that helped at this Uni during my time of need). Although, the statistical analysis still needs to be done, on first appearances we noticed a few trends. Surprisingly we found that the kawakawas planted in the novel locations were very healthy, far more so than in the other locations. Interesting. Obviously I do not want to jump to any interpretations without the statistical analysis but I am looking forward to seeing what kind of trends we get from these data.

So, back in the UK now and on to the analysis and write up, will keep the blog posted with any interesting findings and any relevant environmental issues going on in the news…

Pitching Biodiversity Against Climate Change, Really?

Continuing the events going on in the 2010 year of biodiversity, Biodiversity Loss vs. Climate Change is the title of the debate between a panel of experts convening in the Kew Gardens temperate house this week.



Personally, I find the very question of which is more important futile, as in many ways the two are inexorably linked. The three videos are most definitely worth a watch however, click on the photo to link you to the CNN page. The four speakers; Ahmed Djoghlaf, UN Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity, Paul Smith, Director of Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank , Jon Williams, Head of Biodiversity for PriceWaterhouseCoopers and Phillipe Cousteau, Environmentalist from the renowned Cousteau family raise some important points about what biodiversity is, why it is important and how its loss will effect our economies, health care and perhaps even survival.

Here are some key points they raise:

-‘Biodiversity is the variety of life on earth at all levels—from genes to species to entire ecosystems—it’s essential for sustaining the systems that provide us with food to fuel and other vital services’ (Earths Frontiers)
- “Going to reach tipping point where irreversible damage will be done to biodiversity.” (Djoghlaf, A)
-“(Biodiversity Loss) is one of greatest threats going into the 21st Century” (Costeau. P)
- Pharmaceutical companies which are worth US$6-700 billion are 40-60% dependent on biodiversity for medicines that come from natural species
- Biodiversity services are worth 2-4.5 trillion/per year, which makes it a bigger and more immediate cost than climate change.

CNN have produced a whole range of reports on Earths Frontiers from renewable energies to pinpointing the worlds biodiversity hotspots to bar-coding marine life. There’s even a facebook page if you want to keep up to date with their shows or comment on any of their documentaries.

The Natural History Museum, London

Soon I will be garden-less and therefore unable to rear caterpillars myself. To make up for this I am considering volunteering for a few hours a week at the Butterfly House at the Natural History Museum in London's South Kensington.



They also have many other interesting exhibits on, the following caught my eye:

- Interactive Climate Change Wall

- The Darwin Centre

Check them out if you're in the area.

My passion (outside work)

Im not sure if I mentioned this but I am rather nutty about Lepidoptera. My withdrawal symptoms from rearing moths in New Zealand has left me with a desire to aquire some seasonal fluttery pets back in the UK. I now have some bedroom companions consisting of multiple Peacock butterfly pupae and the odd Elephant Hawkmoth caterpillar. After five days in my company (probably about 10 days altogether) they are emerging (as I write). Here are some pictures:







If you are keen on rearing butterflies/moths/stick insects yourself you can obtain them (amongst other sites) from:

Kew's contribution to the Year of Biodiversity

One of my favourite haunts whilst in London is the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew. Steeped in history, Kew is a botanists utopia. They too are running event for the 'Year of Biodiversity' which I may try and make tomorrow. NB Below is a picture which is really unrelated to this post, but it was taken at Kew, its the Titan Arum. This largest single flower in the world wreaks of rotting flesh to attract pollinators, gross yet pretty impressive.



They even have a butterfly and bug exhibit on in the Princess of Wales glasshouse, always a spectacle!

Did you know that were mid way through the 2010 International Year of Biodiversity?

A recent newsletter from the Maungatautari Ecological Island Trust (one of my field sites in the Waikato) brought to my attention one of the positive cases of conservation being undertaken globally. More information about worldwide events can be found at:

Summer time again (5th in a row)

With the 2009/2010 field season wrapped up in New Zealand I'm now back in the UK to move on to the next stage of my project, data analysis. This being a more desk-based approach to research, I will start to investigate what trends (if any) are occuring in these data. More on this in a few months..

Returning to London brings with it the opportunity to become a working member of my supervisors research group at Silwood Park, attend a broad range of seminars at Imperial and will stimulate me to get up to speed with British research into climate change. My first brief forray of the news pages yielded information on climate policy. The new UK governmnent pledges to become the "greenest ever", and the recent greenhouse gas emission stats certainly support this, being down 8.6% this year. Whether this is largely down to 'the recession' is still debateable but it certainly is encouraging to see a move in the right direction in the 'International Year of Biodiversity'.