News snippets
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‘The Great Weeds Hunt Aotearoa’ – school students join in on hunting down some of our worst weeds
13 Jul 18
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New Zealand is one of the weediest countries in the world, with the number of weed species now outnumbering our native flora. These invasive weeds are among the greatest environmental threats to our parks, wetlands, reserves, coasts, bush remnants, and alpine areas.
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Wasp biocontrol update 13
10 Jul 18
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Last year we brought back from the UK well over 1,000 Sphecophaga vesparum pupae, around 800 Volucella zonaria larvae, 50 Volucella inanis larvae, 40, or so, adult Metoecus paradoxus beetles and two Leopoldius spp pupae. The plan for this season was to rear them all up in order to do the host suitability trials on wasps, bumblebees and honeybees.
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Soil scientists have reached a new milestone, digitally mapping more than 8 million hectares of New Zealand soils.
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Birds are signaling major changes in our environment and a new report shows some of NZ’s birds are sounding the alarm.
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Following extensive overseas research, the Rabbit Haemorrhagic Disease Virus (RHDV) RHDV1-K5 was released by councils at more than 150 sites across New Zealand as a long-term biocontrol for pest rabbit management.
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Update 6: Testing predicted responses of Antarctic plants and microbes to environmental change
17 May 18
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Testing predicted responses of Antarctic plants and microbes to environmental change. It is time now to consider how we will conduct laboratory experiments to determine the environmental tolerances of the eight species of Antarctic terrestrial species.
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National icons are in place for many other life forms, so with fungi being the second largest kingdom of life in New Zealand they’re overdue some additional national profile.
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Manaaki Whenua is kaitiaki (guardian) of the National New Zealand Flax Collection. The collection is made up of over 300 plants. The five main collections include weaving varieties, ornamental garden plants, historical plants from the early flax industry, plants taken to offshore islands by both Māori and Pākehā, and a collection of plants representing what grows in the wild.
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Our history with kauri dieback
2 May 18
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Aotearoa’s magnificent kauri tree was almost wiped out in the early 1900s due to settler deforestation, and now the giants of our forests face a new threat – kauri dieback.
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Jewelled geckos released in Otago
10 Apr 18
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The Central Otago Ecological Trust recently released Jewelled geckos into a 14-ha predator-proof fence near Alexandra. This species has been extinct from Central Otago for many decades, so this translocation represents a significant step in restoring lost lizard communities in this region.