Ecology in New Zealand

Oooooookay, so I thought I would dedicate a blog post about one of the things I learned here that actually pertains to both my major and New Zealand. One of the last things I got to do is look at some kiwis which was absolutely amazing. As many of you know, or may not know, New Zealand is home to some of the most incredible endemic specimens on this lovely planet Earth and the story of how they got here and evolved into what they are today is a very interesting theory. Before I go on I want to comment on the usage of evolution in this post. Evolution is simply just a theory NOT fact. For some reason many people seem to overlook the fallacies and flaws of evolution and accept it as something that is concrete. This is far from the truth. I have done a little research recently (by no means am I an expert at this stuff) and there is plenty of holes and lots of work yet to be done on the theory of evolution.

Anyways, I learned about the biogeography and the native ecosystem here in New Zealand in my Ecology paper (class). I must say I am very blessed to have gotten to take my Ecology paper here as I learned sooo much about different ecosystems and I got a unique exposure to a fascinating habitat found here in NZed. My professors were fantastic (both in comparative physiology and ecology) they were down to earth, knew lots and lots about what they taught (as they are current researchers themselves, in fact in my lake ecology lab report many of my resources came from my professors work), and were enthusiastic about helping us learn their material.

So, New Zealand is a very unique environment as it was thought to have once been joined with Australia and Antarctica which was part of a super continent known as Gondwana (or Gondwanaland).

A depiction of Gondwana

I'm going to make this as short and simple as I possibly can, the story of New Zealand's biogeography (as with many other biological things) is very complex and books and books and books can and have been written on it. Back to the story. The theory of plate tectonics explains that New Zealand then separated from this supercontinent (as did the rest of the continents) and became its own land mass (the biggest of all the polynesian islands) but as it moved it brought with it the species that were residing on Gondwana. These species are known as Gondwana relicts as the only way they would have made it to New Zealand is by basically staying on board and moving with the continent (they basically hitched a ride). There are two theories of how species can get to and inhabit different continents. By dispersal (as birds would fly) and by vicariance. Vicariance is when there is a population of a species and a barrier forms (such as mountains or in New Zealand's case the Tasman Sea) which splits the population and stops genetic exchange between individuals of the two new populations. If the populations are separated long enough it is thought they will make adaptations and there genetic material will change enough to become new species and if the two populations came into contact again they would not be able to reproduce properly, this is how ancestors are created. Now this is just a theory as there has never been a scientist in the history of the world that has been around long enough to record and witness this happening. 

So species such as the tuatara, the gecko species, invertebrates (such as the weta), and frogs are thought to have hitchhiked a ride on New Zealand and were separated from their ancestors via vicariance. FYI no species or fossils of the Order Sphenodontia (tuatara) have been found where you think they would be found- in Australia or Antarctica- but they have been found in places like Europe, Africa, Madagascar, India, China and both North and South America (Gibbs, 2006). This just goes to show a hole in the theory of evolution and vicariance. Its thought that eventually we may find fossils of tuatara ancestors in Australia or Antarctica but nothing has been found yet. 

This would be a weta. Imagine finding this little guy crawling across you in the middle of the night.

Tuatara, apart of Order Sphenodontia, which were thought to have been around since the time of the dinosaurs. Literally a living fossil. Thought to be separated from Gondwana by vicariance. Species on other continents went extinct by predation of mammals but since they did not have this pressure on New Zealand they were able to survive. "Today the reptilian world is divided into crocodiles, turtles, lizards and snakes, and the tuatara (Gibbs, 2006)." And I do believe that these are a reptile that are more adapted to colder climates as they are residents of the South Island.

Many other species joined New Zealand via dispersal such as its many endemic bird species. The type of bird that New Zealand is most known for is its ratites (flightless birds) such as the world renowned kiwi bird. It was once thought that these birds were Gondwana relicts but recent molecular evidence has shown that may not be the case. It is now being more accepted that New Zealand separated from Gondwana and then through dispersal the ancestors of the kiwi, the moa and the kakapo (and other flightless birds) arrived later. When they arrived they still had the ability to fly but that was soon unnecessary as there was no need to fly. There were no predators that required flight and all their food could be found on the rainforest floor. In the absence of mammalian predators the ratites lost wings and adapted to living on the ground (flight is a very costly metabolic function). The reason its thought there were no mammals to prey on these birds is first off islands cannot support as much biodiversity as a mainland land mass can. Secondly around 30 mya its thought that something the Oligicene drowning occurred when oceans rose and turned New Zealand into a series of islands. This drowning would have killed off many species and allowed smaller birds and reptiles to take hold of the land. During this time either moa's had already colonized the land and they were so small that they were able to survive and then there size increased after (increase in size is much more metabolically efficient). Or the moas ancestors arrived after the drowning and evolved quite fast. The closest relative to the moa is the tinamous which still has the ability to fly. I'm still doing more research on the biogeography of the kiwi but we discussed the moa in more depth in my Ecology paper.

Baby kiwi

Kakapo, New Zeland's famous flightless parrot.

Kiwi

Moa interpretation

Feather became more fur like

Kakapo

Just because there were no mammals does not mean there were no predators in fact one of the fiercest birds of prey evolved in New Zealand. The Haast Eagle is the biggest eagle to ever grace this planet and it would prey on moas. The laughing owl was another bird of prey on the island. Harrier hawks still inhabit the planet and I see them while traveling quite often. So this land of the birds produced some odd specimens. The birds evolved defenses against predators that would attack from the air (like birds) so they developed amazing camouflage and became nocturnal. Kiwis are very active at night and you can hear them calling in the forest at the dead of the night. But when humans came they brought with them mammals. Rats, stoats, cats, dogs, ferrets and possums devastated these birds that were adapted to only avoid birds of prey. It was very easy for these mammals to sniff out there prey and have a good feed. 

Another interesting fact is when the polynesians first arrived the Haast eagle would prey on them since they were already adapted for hunting bipedal prey. Pressure from humans is what is thought to have drove the moa and the Haast eagle into extinction. It also is the reason for many many more extinctions in New Zealand. I could write for ages and ages on this topic but I am going to wrap up this session. I am currently doing more research on this stuff so I may come back and add. But this is one of my last nights here and I do not want to spend the rest of my time writing.

Harrier hawk

Haast Eagle going at moa

School is out!

Well hello again everyone. I am now officially finished with my academics during my semester here at Waikato and my time here is winding down. I must say finals were truly one of the biggest academic challenges I've had in quite a while. I've never studied so hard and yet still felt unprepared ever like this. But luckily I think I handled my business good enough to get out of this country with some decent grades that won't dent my GPA. On Friday and Saturday and had a combined 5 hours of exam writing on the subjects of Ecology and Physiology. Basically what I did was in my Physiology final I had to choose a single question from five different sections. Four sections covered the different aspects of bodily physiological functions and the last section covered the animal behavior part of our class. I chose to discuss the processes of neuronal electrical potentials (basically what all goes into action potentials and how they are passed from the presynaptic to postsynaptic cell through both electrical and chemical processes as well as the differences between the different receptor channels found on excitable membranes such as ligand and voltage gated channels), since the class was a comparative physiology class in my next question I had to compare the different methods of locomotion between air, land and water (basically just talked about the different adaptations animals have acquired in order to reduce energetic costs in order to move through there environment). Just thought I would throw this interesting fact in here: ricochetal movement animals such as macropods (kangaroos and wallabies) have developed such an efficient way of movement that the elasticity in which there leg structure allows makes it so as they run faster and faster there oxygen consumption does not increase because there method of locomotion is so metabolically efficient they conserve so much energy from bound to bound. The third question I answered was about how oxygen is distributed through out the body using respiratory pigments (I discussed there structure, specifically explained hemoglobin, and how environmental factors can affect there affinity for oxygen). My fourth question I discussed osmoregulation and ionoregulation (one of the aspects I discussed here was how diadromous are able to live in estuary environments, how fish move from marine to freshwater environments and visa versa) and my last section on animal behavior I discussed deception found in animal signals.
So now that I bore you to death with physiology now I'll get started on Ecology, which was awesome because I learned so much about New Zealand and its wildlife (which I will dedicate a posting to pretty soon here where I will go into depth of some of the things I learned here, I just need a break from writing about all this stuff) and how the island structure of New Zealands ecosystem allows for so many unique endemic species such as the kiwi, the kakapo and the now extinct moa. My first question I discussed how there are different reproductive structures found throughout the animal kingdom (such as monogamy, promiscuity, polygamy which includes polyandry and polygyny and how the ecosystem can determine the structure). My second question I discussed the biogeochemical cycles of nutrients into and out of ecosystems (I was also considering answering the biogeography one as well). Then I answered a question comparing temperate deciduous forests and New Zealands temperate (I think, it could be tropical) evergreen forests (it was hard to remember specific specie names). My last question I answered how the different temporal stratification structure found in lakes affects the phytoplankton populations, the distribution of dissolved oxygen and nutrient cycles.
I would just like to say I learned a lot here and even though the finals were very very hard and I really hope I get good marks I must say this was well worth it. I love learning about this stuff and I'm excited to learn more. All learning does is raise even more questions about the stuff I thought I knew about.

Any ways enough about that. Basically after finals we started drinking and went to the All Blacks game who were playing Ireland. It was pretty damn fun. It was funny since as we walked in I all of a sudden heard "LADS! HEY LADS! Would ya come over here for a sec." I turn to find two drunk ass Irishmen  walking our way. I was a little skeptic to go over to them so I asked them what they wanted. Turns our they just wanted us to take a picture of them so Gabe did. As we left they said "Boys tonight you will witness history." What they meant by that was Ireland had never ever beat New Zealand in New Zealand and the week before the Irish nearly won.

Turns out we did witness history.

It was the biggest blow out between the two teams ever. The final score was like 60-0 and All blacks kicked ass. I must say I had a blast listening to drunk Irishmen chant. I loved hearing the combination of accents.

Any ways I'm super tired and I got footage I will show when I get back home. Watching the Haka was awesome.

I plan on dedicating a post about going to Auckland, the interesting things I learned in bio class (specifically the biogeography and the biodiversity in New Zealand) and just interesting things I adapted to regarding life in NZed.

Sorry this is so sloppy.

Finals finished on the 23rd of June.

Peace out

FINALS WEEK

So this past week we had no papers (classes) and it is known as study week here at Waikato Uni. The reason for this is that finals are generally worth around 50% of your grade so studying is critical. Not to mention both my finals are essays. In physiology my final is worth 60% and in Ecology it is worth 50%. Basically on Friday and Saturday I will have 3 hours for each class to right 5 essays for my comparative  physiology paper and 4 essays for my Ecology paper. In my physiology essays I will have to cover about all the systems of the body and in Ecology I have to answer questions regarding population dynamics, ecosystem structures, nutrition cycles (biogeochemistry), and aspects of biogeography.
Yes it sucks but I kind of like it because it is absolutely forcing me learn all the material and that is exactly what I want. Not to mention this stuff is quite interesting. In my ecology class a lot of the examples and ecosystems we learned about were generally related to New Zealand which made the lectures quite interesting. Being able to visit and study a few ecosystems for class was a great experience (even if I was half drunk for the marine field trip since it was my 21st, but I still got a 90% on the lab report!) I will admit though it was hard at times because the kiwi students knew all the vegetation and species since they basically grew up with this stuff around them where as all this stuff was new to me. It would be just like me learning about trees and species and such in Minnesota.
Anyways, so I have a lot of studying to do this week. It will be well worth it and I look forward to the many hours in the library I have ahead of me. (the library is only open til 9! and 6 on the weekends!) Then on Saturday we got tickets to the All Blacks game vs. Ireland so that should be a great way to begin my final week in NZ.

Oh yeah, I have no class any more just my final on Friday and Saturday then my last week is completely free!

Horseback riding

So we had been wanting to do something for quite sometime (we were kind of being lazy and stuck in Hamilton) and Katie and Autumn had been dying to do some horseback riding ever since we got back from the south island. So we found a pretty good deal where we could go horseback riding for two hours and we only would have to pay $35. I was definitely in since I was itching to get out and explore more of New Zealand. Not to mention the ranch was only about a half hour drive and was right at the edge of Hamilton. Aaaaah the joys of living in paradise, you don't have to go too far to see beauty. The only thing was that we woke up late and were nearly too late but we made it.
We got there, paid and signed the waiver. We were then each were assigned a horse. I got Olive. D.J. got Kiki. Damien got Bambina. Katie got Socksy. Autumn got Amber . . . yup just Amber. The sweetest thing was that my horse was like a foot taller than all the others. It was nice being up on the high horse. Unfortunately I didn't bring my camera because it was misting out so I have to borrow all the pictures from Facebook. Although it was misty we got to see like a million rainbows which simply added to the gorgeous views. We rode through a lot of Waikato ranch land passing sheep, goats and cows. It was very green and peaceful. It was a little muddy but that made it more interesting when we went down steep hills. Sometimes the horses would slide a few meters on their hooves!

Damien, D.J. and Katie on their horses

D.J. and I led the whole way.

Olive and I

Rainbow

Horseback riding was a lot of fun and it really makes me want to ride horses much more when I get home. Its so relaxing. I must say Olive and I made one good team. 

I'm glad I got to go on this adventure.

Date 6/9/12 (9/6/12)

LIONS!

Alright so we haven't gone on many adventures lately but we finally were able to make another trip to Rotorua and damn this was a good one. Lets just say we got to pet 4 month lion cubs and watch lions get fed. We also walked through the Redwood forest and bathed in another natural hot springs with a waterfall. Before I go on I got to tell the story of the Saab sassin hard and of course Gabe was the one that got her to cooperate . . . again.

So we got out of the hot springs and went up to the car to leave. It was about 30 degrees out and very very dark out. We get to the car only to find out that the battery in our remote unlocker thingy died. You wouldn't think this would be a big deal but our stupid car alarm is set off when you unlock it manually . . . .  -__-. So we unlocked praying this time would be different and of course it wasn't. So our car alarm was going bizurk and we obviously couldn't start the car. To make matters worse there was a couple down in the hot springs trying to enjoy the beautiful night so they had to listen to our obnoxious alarm for like a half hour or so going on and off while we were trying to figure how the hell we were going to get out of the damn place. Our first solution was to take the fuse out of the horn to stop the loud honking but that did nothing. Eventually we were all sitting in the car basically accepting the fact we were screwed. She was up to no good again. To lighten matters the alarm was going off when Gabe sat in the driver seat and shushed her and rubbed the key hole and sure enough the alarm stopped for a bit. Then Gabe tried opening the remote thing and he eventually pried it open with his teeth. He then took the batteries out and gave em the ole N64 trick (blowing on them) and rotated the batteries . . . sure enough he hit the button and there was a slight reaction from the Saab. Our problem was solved.

Anyways the day wasn't about the Sassin it was about our day in Paradise valley where we got to pet lion cubs and watch the adults feed. There also was a natural trout creek where huge trout went to spawn.

She really loved chewing on this thing (had horse meat in it which is what they feed the lions)

Big Ole Trout, Where's my fishing pole?

Got to drink out of these springs, very good warer

Trout with mouth open

Eels, very common in NZ

Wallaby

Yawn

Big ole Redwoods

Going into Kerosene Creek

Drinking the water

Petting the lion cubs was literally a dream come true and I am very pissed I can't upload video because they turned out better than my pictures. For those that are curious a lion cub (these were four months old females) have a fairly coarse coat kind of like sheep wool. Underneath though they are rock solid. They aren't as soft and cuddly as they look. But they are just as cute in real life as they are in photos (if not cuter). They were very playful and a little mischievous (just as I was hoping). I would have loved to sit and play with them all day and I hope someday I get the opportunity to do something like that.

The lions came from a line of circus lions that one point escaped during a show so they had to discontinue the show. At the time Paradise Valley was still growing and they decided to adopt the lions. Some of the offspring are sent to zoos or sometimes incorporated into a pride in the wild.

I also must comment on watching the lions feed. Before the feeding one of the lionesses was getting restless and she began to roar and paw at a cage that was holding younger lions and it was incredibly intimidating. When a lion roars it shakes your gut and instills a primitive fear and you just know you're supposed to respect these gorgeous beasts. It is quite the experience.

Then being able to walk through the Redwoods, which were absolutely huge, was icing to the cake. The trees are a rare species found in California that have very specific and specialized requirements to grow (I learned about them in my Ecology class). There once was a forest of native pine like trees but for reasons I can't remember (I have to review my notes) they were all decimated. Ecologists and conservationists then regrew the forest with these trees that were found in California. Quite incredible. I'll review my notes and add details later.

Ending the day at Kerosene creek was absolutely perfect. We are going to go back during the day so I will expand on this place once we return.

As a conclusion to this post I'm just going to show pictures of a little friend we found outside our house a couple days ago.

The names Slim.

Native parrot

I like this picture

I apologize if this entry seems rushed and sloppy. Today I spent five hours studying for my physiology final and I'm a little wiped plus I will be studying even more tomorrow. I will explain the way finals work in a future post. Hopefully I can come back and review this and fix it if need be. 

Cheers 

Date 13/6/2012 (6/13/12)