Centre leader joins ministerial advisory group
Saving quillworts
Stream health in the Pacific
Search for aliens in the Seychelles
Which macrophyte
A modelling career as a port piling was probably not what Dr Ameer Abdulla (IUCN) had in mind when he went to Dr Oliver Floerl’s workshop on baseline survey techniques in the Seychelles. Here Oli demonstrates how to sample fouling assemblages.
The Seychelles archipelago in the Indian Ocean is a remarkably diverse ecosystem.
Dr Barbara Hayden
Dr Barbara Hayden, who leads the National Centre for Aquatic Biodiversity & Biosecurity, has been appointed to the Biosecurity Ministerial Advisory Committee. The 13-member committee provides independent advice on how the biosecurity system is performing.
Barb is a NIWA principal scientist and has extensive knowledge of marine biosecurity research. She’s been involved in developing biosecurity policy, including import health standards under the Biosecurity Act, and established the NZ Ballast Water Working Group.
For the uninitiated, a ‘macrophyte’ is an aquatic plant large enough to be seen with the naked eye.
In February, staff from DOC and the West Coast Regional Council learnt a lot more about identifying these plants in a two-day workshop in Hokitika run by NIWA scientists Paul Champion and Paula Reeves.
The hands-on workshop was based on using NIWA’s quick guides, covering the five different macrophyte groups (e.g., free-floating plants, submerged plants).
Endemic quillworts grow up to 30 cm tall, and reproduce by spores in the leaf base.
Quillworts grow as extensive underwater meadows in South Island lakes. They may look like a grass, but are more closely related to ferns. Here Mary de Winton swims over vegetation dominated by quillworts in Lake Wakatipu.
Quillworts (Isoetes species) are spiky-looking, submerged plants that form turfs in shallow, clear waters of lakes.
NIWA scientist Alastair Suren with students from the Fijian Institute of Technology.
NIWA is developing a simple-to-use kit to enable people in the Pacific to assess the health of streams.
The kit (‘PacSHMAK’) is based on NIWA’s Stream Health Monitoring Assessment Kit (SHMAK) used by farming and community groups in New Zealand. The project is funded by the NZ Agency for International Development (NZAid).
One of the positive spin-offs so far has been the most comprehensive freshwater biological survey ever conducted in Fiji.
