Zoology
Recent Deposits
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The impacts of stormwater runoff on the littoral-benthic macroinvertebrate communities along the shoreline of Lake Wanaka & Lake Wakatipu
The potential for contaminants to enter the lake shore environments of Lake Wanaka and Lake Wakatipu is an emerging problem for environmental managers within the Queenstown Lakes District of New Zealand. As population in ... -
Attitudes to wildlife rescue
Australia’s 20,000+ wildlife volunteers rescue and rehabilitate native animals. They respond to hundreds of phone calls and enquiries every day, mostly from members of the public seeking help and advice about injured, ... -
Ontogenetic differences in behaviour of the Otago skink (Oligosoma otagense) at Ōrokonui Ecosanctuary
Personalities of animals may demonstrate ontogenetic changes in response to a plethora of different environmental factors and experiences early in life. Understanding these ontogenetic personality changes aids in understanding ... -
The spatio-temporal dynamics of fish and invertebrate communities within coastal wetland systems
This thesis investigates the spatial and temporal dynamics of fish and invertebrate populations within coastal wetlands in Southland, New Zealand. Each chapter focusses on a different aspect of the community and its ... -
Bats, Bioacoustics, & Bat Lures in Brunei Darussalam
Bats are the most diverse mammalian order, second to rodents, with 1400+ species found globally across almost every continent. In the tropics, where it is possible to find more than 60 bat species at a single site, they ... -
Assessment of migration barriers in the eastern Otago region: Perched road culverts, climbing galaxiids and non-migratory galaxiid conservation
New Zealand’s diadromous fish populations face vast networks of road culverts that often limit upstream dispersal as a function of efficient hydrological design. Migration barriers, such as perched pipe culverts, fragment ... -
Dynamic Causal Inference Using a Hardware Implementation of Spiking Neurons
Nervous systems may have originated in the late Ediacaran period to rapidly detect “critical states” of the first predators (or prey) being within striking distance, likely by virtue of electroreception. However as motility ... -
A Computational Model of Transduction Cells in the Vestibular System
The human brain, and even the brains of the lowest vertebrates, are diabolically complex, and complete understanding of these systems would take hundreds of careers to build. One key way of dealing with this complexity is ... -
Uncertainty, Precaution & Perception: Communicating the Risk of Heading in Football
Concerns regarding the short and long-term effects of sport-related head injury have grown in recent decades. The damage incurred by mild traumatic brain injury in the context of collision sports has thus received significant ... -
Predator-Prey Interactions Between Paranephrops zealandicus and Odonata Species in Semi-natural Aquaculture Environments
Interactions between predator and prey contribute towards shaping food webs and can be responsible for the composition of species in an ecosystem. In semi-natural aquaculture ponds, interactions between predators and ... -
Hidden diversity of two intracellular parasites, Microsporidia and Rickettsia, in New Zealand amphipod hosts: patterns and causes
Intracellular parasites, endosymbionts that are specialised to live in host cells, have evolved independently in many different lineages. Endosymbionts can be transmitted vertically and horizontally, and many of them ... -
Taking science communication to school: Improving student engagement with science through mobile filmmaking
Our lives are increasingly influenced by science. Global challenges like climate change, disease, and agriculture all rely on the public making informed decisions through engagement with scientific practice and information. ... -
Habitat selection by feral cats (Felis catus) and three rat species (Rattus spp.) on Stewart Island (Rakiura) and their impacts on native birds
Populations of many native bird species on Stewart Island are in decline, despite the absence of mustelids, which are known bird predators on the mainland of New Zealand. Other bird predators, principally ship rats, possums, ... -
Spatial and temporal genetic structuring in yellow-eyed penguins
Improving our understanding of the forces driving population decline and the processes that affect the dynamics of threatened populations is central to the success of conservation management. The application of genetic ... -
A comparison of site occupancy and morphology between Litoria raniformis in Central Otago, New Zealand and Victoria, Australia
Many amphibian species across the globe are at high risk of extinction. Alien species, overexploitation, land-use change, climate change, chemicals, and infectious diseases are all having devastating effects on amphibians. ... -
The behaviour of the banded dotterel, Charadrius bicinctus.
A comprehensive study has not previously been made of any aspects of the Banded Dotterel's ecology or behaviour. […] Two study areas were used for this research. One was the environs of Lake Wainono (Fig. 1), a small ... -
Does Size Matter? Using Osteology and Ancient DNA to Reconstruct Extinct Diversity in Duvaucel’s Gecko
The dynamic geology and climate of the New Zealand archipelago has had pronounced effects on the evolution of its endemic flora and fauna. However, contemporary biodiversity is depauperate, with previous studies revealing ... -
Tracing the lines of race & health online: A mixed-methods exploration of the African-American HIV/AIDS movement on Twitter
Although accounting for 13 percent of the American population, in 2017, African-Americans made up over 42 percent of people living with HIV or AIDS (PLWHA) in the United States. In addition to the highest prevalence, ... -
Laborastories: Creative Assessment for NCEA Science
The National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) is the main form of assessment used in New Zealand secondary schools. This system promotes fragmentation of knowledge and does not align with the values of the ... -
‘Bring me a shrubbery’: Assessing the habitat preference of mammalian predators in the urban green spaces of New Zealand cities
Within cities, areas of green space, such as patches of forest, play a vital role as habitat for wildlife, and can be especially important for supporting native biodiversity. As such, urban restoration efforts often aim ...