In my Fifth Form year at Dunstan High School, Alexandra, my Biology Teacher was Peter Child. He retired shortly afterwards, and as …
New Zealand ecology
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Biogeography & Vegetation
Was there a Forest before Central Otago’s Kowhai Forest?
by Mike Poleby Mike PoleWhen humans arrived in New Zealand, a bit over 700 years ago (Wilmshurst et al., 2008; Jacomb et al., 2014), it seems …
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Biogeography & Vegetation
Dunedin’s Saddlebacks/Tieke and Yellowheads/Mopua
by Mike Poleby Mike PoleAmateur field observations of species can be priceless. A local Dunedin man (Peter Thomson, 1823-1879), using the pen-name ‘Pakeha’, wrote several accounts …
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Green Island Bush is a prime example of a large patch of New Zealand indigenous forest that was essentially annihilated in the …
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Biogeography & Vegetation
The Lost Ecosystem of the Leith Swamp Forest, Dunedin
by Mike Poleby Mike PoleOne part of Dunedin is different from the rest…. The Dunedin area is an old volcano. It’s formed mostly from the molten, …
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When a forest is dead, but somehow still there – either as bleached stumps, and felled, and possibly burnt trunks, I call …
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We owe so much of what we know of early Dunedin to just a few artists! Up till 1850, there’s only a …
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Biogeography & Vegetation
The Lost Taieri/Taiari Bush, near Dunedin, New Zealand
by Mike Poleby Mike PoleLeads to New Zealand’s ‘lost forests’ turn up in all sorts of places. I was in the Dunedin Public Library when I …
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A little over 700 years ago, humans finally discovered the last habitable place on Earth, Aotearoa-New Zealand (Wilmshurst et al., 2011; Mulrooney …
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The Musket Wars? Shortly after Europeans began operating in Aotearoa-New Zealand (c. 1807-1837), a series of conflicts among the indigenous Maori dramatically …
