Zoology
Recent Deposits
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Motivations and Attitudes of New Zealand Conservation Volunteers
Conservation in New Zealand is a massive enterprise, combining government, public, and private efforts. Volunteers work across these sectors to restore the unique flora and fauna of this island archipelago. In light of ... -
Source of Expertise Affects Perceived Credibility of an Interview Used in a Medical Documentary
This thesis is composed of two integrated components: a creative project and original academic research. The creative component is a 25-minute medical documentary called Fairy Steps. Fairy Steps follows a 4-year-old girl ... -
Using Esri Story Map ArcGIS to Support Community-led Natural Resource Managment
This thesis investigates a potential platform for communities and environmental management groups to compile and communicate their environmental data. With natural resource management shifting from government-led to ... -
Short term impacts of physical instream restoration works on the invertebrate community in Waituna Creek, measured by Surber and kick-net sampling methods.
Due to anthropogenic activity, many rivers have been degraded and have lost structural diversity. Rivers restorations are commonly undertaken in order to reinstate the lost habitat heterogeneity. In New Zealand, freshwater ... -
Behavioural and ecological factors affecting the trappability of two skink species in Nelson
The syntopic skink species Oligosoma infrapunctatum and O. lineoocellatum appear to have different trappability estimates at Lake Station, Nelson. Long-term mark-recapture data has shown that O. lineoocellatum has a ... -
Lipid physiology in beluga (Huso huso L.) - the relationship between developmental stages, 11-ketotestosterone levels and ovarian lipid uptake
In egg-laying fish, survival of the embryonic and initial larval stages depends on accumulation of substantial reserves of yolk and lipid within the egg during oocyte growth. In sturgeon, a non-teleost basal ray-finned ... -
Framing Entertainment and Wild Gorillas: Effects on Public Perception and Endangered Status A Conceptual Review
Schroepfer, Rosati, Chartrand, and Hare (2011) found that the use of chimpanzees in entertainment leads people to believe that they are not endangered and that they would make suitable pets. As gorillas have also featured ... -
The survival, longevity, diet and development of mountain stone weta Hemideina maori in the Rock and Pillar Range, New Zealand
For ectotherms, environmental temperature is an important correlate of growth rate, development time and final body size, with the dominant trend being an increase in growth rate and a decrease in size at maturity as ... -
A comparative ecological study of Pied and Black Stilts in South Canterbury.
Stilts Himantopus are long-legged waders of the Order Charadriiformes, Family Recurvirostridae. Two species occur in New Zealand, the Black Stilt H. novaezealandiae and the Pied Stilt H. himantopus leucocephalus, each of ... -
The effects of vegetation removal on rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus) and small mammalian predators in braided riverbeds of the Mackenzie Basin
[Executive Summary] (…) Predation by cats, ferrets and stoats (Mustela erminea) has been identified as a major threat to several species of birds which nest in open riverbed areas of the Mackenzie Basin, South Canterbury, ... -
Aspects of mammalian predator ecology co-inhabiting giant skink habitat
The utilisation of habitats and the diet of feral cats and ferrets was studied in an area co-inhabited by giant skinks in the Middlemarch-Macraes Flat region of Central Otago, New Zealand. Home range and habitat utilisation ... -
Experimental addition of Onthophagus binodis and Geotrupes spiniger to pasture ecosystems in New Zealand and an investigation of affected biotic and abiotic soil factors.
New Zealand has a serious environmental pollution problem caused by intensive farming, and a lack of co-evolved dung beetle species to clean up the waste produced by these introduced herbivores. Our endemic dung beetles ... -
Social Networking of the Otago Skink (Oligosoma otagense) at Ōrokonui Ecosanctuary
The social behaviour of New Zealand’s native lizards is poorly understood. This study explores the social behaviour of the Otago skink (Oligosoma otagense), one of New Zealand’s largest-bodied and rarest species of lizards. ... -
Translocation management of Leiopelma archeyi (Amphibia, Anura: Leiopelmatidae) in the King country
Although conservation translocations are often recommended, they are expensive, require a long-term commitment and half of them fail. Moreover, in New Zealand, translocations have an additional cultural impact due to the ... -
Behavioural, convergent and ontogenetic evidence for adaptive behavioural manipulation in mermithid infected hosts
Parasite fitness is often tied closely to host behaviour, especially when transition to a definitive host or egression in a particular environment is involved. Thus natural selection has driven many parasites to control ... -
The efficacy of aerial 1080 poison applied on a landscape scale to control alpine predators and the reproductive response of rock wren (Xenicus gilviventris)
New Zealand is a globally unique oceanic island due to the high prevalence of alpine ecosystems and a biota that evolved in the absence of mammals. Introduced mammalian predators are the leading cause of extinctions in New ... -
Putting Meaning in Naturalism: The Role of Science Films and Support for Evolution
Only 19% of Americans believe that human beings evolved over millions of years and that this occurred without any divine creator, according to recent Gallup polls (Swift, 2017). Despite overwhelming supportive evidence for ... -
Activism, Science and the Infinite Game: Exploring the relationship between science and environmental activism
According to James Carse, humanity plays two types of games. We play games that are finite and games that are infinite. As human activity alters the biosphere, ecosystems are collapsing, biodiversity is declining, and the ... -
Sub-lethal effects of brodifacoum pesticide exposure on Wellington tree weta, Hemideina crassidens
Non-target pesticide exposure causes a myriad of detrimental sub-lethal effects in a broad range of taxa, with pesticide-induced changes in behaviour, physiology and reproduction documented widely. Most studies have focused ... -
Disturbance, predation and competition in a flood-prone stream
Among the drivers of the patchy distribution of organisms in space and time are abiotic factors, including physical disturbance, and biotic interactions such as predation and competition. Our understanding of the interplay ...