#LincolnUniversityNZ
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I've been up in the North Canterbury mountains this week, helping to teach our third-year undergraduate field research course at #LincolnUniversityNZ. It was great fun, as always, helping students to carry out their first ecology research projects.

I'm collapsed […]

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A photo of five students at night gathered around our moth light, a bright mercury vapour bulb set on a small tripod above a white sheet. You can see moths settled on the sheet and others swirling about the bulb. A photo of two students botanising in the tussock and herb fields above the forest tree line up Mount Faust. Far down in the background you can see the valley floor where the Boyle River Outdoor Education Centre is where we stayed. We spend the day walking up the mountain from there to collect daisy seed heads. A photo of four people (I'm bottom left) near the top of Mount Faust, with the Boyle River Outdoor Education Centre building far off in the distance down on the valley floor. Connor, top left, was doing his project on the insects that each daisy seeds and we all climbed the mountain with him to help. A photo of two students working in forest. Ashley, on the ground, is setting out a peanut butter baited tracking tunnel at one of our stations for monitoring pest mammals in the forest. For her project, Ashley will be using the past 15 years of class data on mammals and birds to see how the pest mammals affect the forest's bird populations. Abby, standing, is measuring the diameter of one of the trees, as part of her project that's looking at how forest structure affects birds.
January 30, 2026 at 5:28 AM
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For the past week four of us from #LincolnUniversityNZ were based at Hinewai Reserve on Banks Peninsula, NZ. We visited a set of monitoring sites in and our of the predator control area of the Predator Free Banks Peninsula project. Predator Free Banks Peninsula […]

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A photo of my hand holding a mesh bag containing four geckos, while in the background Jennifer Gillette is making measurements on another gecko. Once the measurements and photos are made, the geckos are carefully released back into their shelter. A photo of student Max Mulvihill as we walked down through the young forest of Panama Rock. Max is carrying a box filled with 12 pitfall traps that we've just got from further up in the reserve. Off in the distance is the white university ute waiting to pick us up before we head off to our next site. A photo of Jennifer Gillette and summer student Sam looking for one of our lizard shelters, while student Max admires the view. We're on the grassy flank of a hillside overlooking Akaroa harbour. A photo of our audio recorder set up. We use two AudioMoths for birds, one set to record in the daytime and the other in the nighttime (so we can record for longer) and there's also a black tubular DOC AR4 recorder which we set to record at higher frequencies to detect any bats that might be present.
January 17, 2026 at 11:55 PM
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A postgrad student at #LincolnUniversityNZ, Noah Fenwick, is studying the ecology of these NZ blue butterflies for his Masters thesis (with me and a couple of our entomologists). Hopefully in a year's time we'll know a lot more about the blues' habitat and host preferences, how their populations […]
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December 29, 2025 at 4:32 AM
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NEWS FLASH: We have CLAMS living on campus!

As part of last week's Sustainability Weed at #LincolnUniversityNZ, our freshwater ecology tutor Elysia Harcombe did some kick sampling along a farm ditch. Yes, she found clams!

It's the first record on #inaturalist of clams on campus, or anywhere in […]
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September 29, 2025 at 4:21 AM
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This week is Sustainability Week at #LincolnUniversityNZ. Here’s the student magazine with all the details. I’m looking forward to today’s tree planting, 11–1, at the site of the university’s old Burns Building.

Burns was damaged in the earthquakes and […]

[Original post on mastodon.nz]
A photo of the cover of the student magazine, RAM, with a stylised drawing of a kereū bird, drawn by the partner of one of the postgrad students. A two page magazine spread on Sustainability Week on campus. The page on the right is The Great LU BioBlitz with instructions on how to use iNaturalist. A two page magazine spread on the scavenger hunt happening across campus for Sustainability Week. There’s a map and a list of things to find.
September 23, 2025 at 3:09 PM
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The other ecology seminar we had this week at #LincolnUniversityNZ was on the state of New Zealand's lakes, by Professor Susie Wood. Susie has spent her career working on projects understanding and monitoring the health of NZ's lakes. She took us through some of […]

[Original post on mastodon.nz]
Susie Wood stands next to a slide that shows the lakes of NZ and shows the nutrient status of them. Almost half now are classified as eutrophic, supertrophic, or hypertrophic, all categories that mean that they contain nutrient levels that are far too high. Susie Wood stands next to a slide that shows the fish eDNA in sediments of Lake Waihau in Gisborne, which used to be surrounded by forest and is now surrounded by native pasture. Fish DNA collapses in the past 50 years, including the extinction of the common bully, which is a resilient generalist native species. The other fish featured, the banded kōkopu, went extinct in this lake in Māori settlement when the forests were burned off. Susie Wood stands next to a slide that shows detection bird DNA in the lake sediments of Lake Paringa on the South Island West Coast. It shows the extinction of moa, kakapo, and South Island kakapo, while kereru continues to be detected. Susie concluded with this Māori whakataukī: Me hoki whakamuri, kia haere whakamua Current and future activities should be guided by lessons from the past
September 13, 2025 at 9:51 AM
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We had a couple of interesting ecology and conservation seminars this week at #LincolnUniversityNZ. The first, on Monday, was by Lou Sanson, ex-Director General of the NZ Department of Conservation.

Lou is now involved in the 30x30 initiative to protect 30% of […]

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A slide from Lou Sanson's seminar, showing some of the achievements Australia has been making as part of 30x30. Unlike NZ, Australia is signed up to the High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People. The text reads as follows: AUSTRALIA 22% LAND - 48% OCEAN (#8 IN WORLD) 30x30 Critical Goal Dept Restructured to Deliver 30x30 Aboriginal land focus a priority Nature Positive Integration Division (nature based solutions/blue carbon) Nature Repair Market estb High Ambition Coalition for Nature Independent EPA ($121mil) New World Heritage Areas (Flinders/Cape York) Doubling Indigenous Rangers (3800 by 2030) Primary Forest Logging Ban ( WA/Victoria) A slide from Lou Sanson's seminar, showing New Zealand's backwards progress in conservation. Unlike Australia, NZ has decided not to join the 122 other countries that have signed up to the High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People. The text of the slide reads as follows. NEW ZEALAND 30% LAND - 2% OCEAN Min of Oceans (Shane Jones)/Min of Environment(Penny Symonds) Fast Track Legislation (overrides Conservation Act) Kermedec Giant MPA Stopped Freshwater Reforms Stopped Pvt Land Protection(SNA's) Stopped EV Subsidies Stopped $4.5 bill Climate Emergency Response Fund Stopped No plan for 30x30 or OECMs (not High Ambition)
September 13, 2025 at 9:26 AM
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We just brought it six audio recorders from across campus at #LincolnUniversityNZ, which students had laid out as part of our long-term monitoring of campus birds.

To our surprise, and annoyance, some pesky varmint has done its best to gnaw right through one of […]

[Original post on mastodon.nz]
A photo of six audio recorders sitting on my office chair. They're long thin black plastic units, with a microphone at one end covered in sponge and protected by a metal grill, and the rest of the unit is solid plastic inside of which are the batteries and electronics. This is the AR4 model designed and manufactured by the New Zealand Department of Conservation. A photo of one end of an audio recorder with the plastic gnawed right through, almost all the way around the unit, exposing the SD card and electronics. It's definitely not waterproof now!
September 8, 2025 at 3:28 AM
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An undergraduate student here at #LincolnUniversityNZ, Shuizetinglan, as interested in exploring tide pools so we suggested he visit Inainatu/Pile Bay in Lyttelton Harbour. It was an extensive rocky platform that's exposed at low tide where various intertidal creatures can be found […]
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August 19, 2025 at 5:09 AM
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It's always a treat to find earthstars and today was the first time I'd found some on the campus of #LincolnUniversityNZ where I work.

They come out of the ground like little brown flowers and their central balls puff out spores when the rain hits them. And, then, they're gone again […]
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August 14, 2025 at 10:21 AM
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A female korimako (NZ bellbird) has been spotted at #LincolnUniversityNZ! These photos were taken on our campus on Tuesday by student William Harland. I checked on #iNaturalistNZ and, of the 153 korimako observations from Lincoln town and surrounds, this is the only the second female bird seen […]
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August 6, 2025 at 11:47 PM
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Frogs! So many frogs!

Our field ecology course at #LincolnUniversityNZ was up in the Southern Alps mountains of Boyle, North Canterbury, NZ, this weekend. Despite the winter cold, hundreds of whistling frogs were noisily calling at night from a nearby pond. We […]

[Original post on mastodon.nz]
A photo of Abby, a Lincoln University student, holding a whistling frog in her hand at night. A photo of a whistling frog. They're a small brown frog with a darker brown strip along the eye. A photo of a whistling frog. They're a small brown frog with a darker brown strip along the eye. The frog in this photo is looking straight at the camera.
August 6, 2025 at 9:51 AM
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Today I was teaching a lecture about environmental weeds, for our Applied Ecology and Conservation course at #LincolnUniversityNZ. I showed the class the "Environmental weeds in New Zealand" project on #inaturalist. That was made by staff at the […]

[Original post on mastodon.nz]
A screenshot from the iNaturalist website showing a map of the campus of Lincoln University in Canterbury, New Zealand. The points on the map are the observations of the Department of Conservation's environmental weeds of NZ. The campus has 952 observations of 109 species from this list. https://inaturalist.nz/observations?place_id=67596&project_id=environmental-weeds-in-new-zealand&subview=map&verifiable=any
August 5, 2025 at 9:01 AM
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Here's a couple of the invertebrate finds from our three-day field trip into the mountains with weekend with our Field Ecology Methods course at #LincolnUniversityNZ

The weevil somehow ended up in the hair of student Emilie while she was walking through the […]

[Original post on mastodon.nz]
A macro photo of a grey weevil standing on the side of a branch. It has a big black eye and two blunt spike-like protrusions from the back of its abdomen. A photo of a plump bluish springtail with yellow bumps protruding from the sides of its abdomen. It's got a beady little dark eye. It's sitting on some moss and is about 4 mm long.
August 4, 2025 at 7:50 AM
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This weekend I've been up at the Boyle River Outdoor Education Centre helping to teach out field ecology methods course at #LincolnUniversityNZ.

That's our second-year undergraduate ecology course that gives students practical experience with a lot of common […]

[Original post on mastodon.nz]
A photo of a woman holding out her smart phone to photograph a NZ robin, which is perching on a branch at eye level right next to the phone. NZ robins are famously curious and bold around people. My full-res photo is on Flickr at https://www.flickr.com/photos/mollivan_jon/54696752798/
August 3, 2025 at 10:22 AM
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Yesterday afternoon I was at the #christchurchbotanicgarden, with an undergrad student at #LincolnUniversityNZ who will be interning at the garden during the next teaching semester. Luke Martin, the curator of the native section of the garden, gave us a […]

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The native plant curator at the Christchurch Botanic Gardens, Luke Martin, standing next to an enormous single leaf of the (definitely not NZ native) titan arum. The leaf is twice as tall as Luke. The photo is in the tropical section of the glasshouses. A photo of me (foreground, older white guy with glasses) and Luke Martin (bearded younger man) standing next to a glasshouse bench covered in pots. Each pot contains a threatened NZ plant. This work is a collaboration with the Department of Conservation to prevent NZ's rarest plants from going extinct (some species are right on the edge at the moment). A photo of a thin-leaved daisy plant in a small pot on a glasshouse bench. This is the swamp Celmisia from Travis Wetland in Christchurch city. It is similar to Celmisia gracilenta but likely a new undescribed species, which will likely make it an endangered species. A photo of a printed aerial photo of what the Christchurch botanic gardens looked like around 1935. It's amazing how many tall trees there are here, when the city was only founded in 1850 and the gardens in 1863. On the left there's a small lake with two islands in it the shape of New Zealand (that was too hard to maintain and no longer exists).
July 9, 2025 at 2:58 AM
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We don't teach an art degree at #LincolnUniversityNZ, Te Whare Wānaka o Aoraki, but we're filled with art. We're a smaller university that specialises on land management (agriculture, landscape architecture, environmental policy and planning, conservation and […]

[Original post on mastodon.nz]
A photo of a close-up of part of a steel and bronze sculpture by NZ artist Bing Dawe. It shows four small eels on the left, in metal, and on the right they're shapes are cut out of a section of metal. A photo of a steel and bronze sculpture by NZ artist Bing Dawe. It shows four small eels on the left, in metal, and on the right they're shapes are cut out of a section of metal. In between they're connected by a ring with a thin flowing line connecting them. A photo of the sign explaining the sculpture. It begins are follows: Bing Dawe Under a Night Sky. Composition with Tunariki, Branches and Voids 2019 Painted steel and bronze For 40 years, sculptor and printmaker Bing Dawe has drawn on the natural environment and our native species to inform his work. In his Under a Night Sky series, Dawe focuses on the vulnerability of tunariki (baby eel) - exploring both their presence and absence through the clever use of positive and negative space. This work comments on the intensification of rivers and waterways; human impact on the delicate ecological balance of our environment. Known for his expertise as an exceptional craftsman, Dawe successfully depicts both the beauty and delicacy of the natural world while also hauntingly showing a world in decline.
July 8, 2025 at 2:03 AM
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I used this paper as one of the options this year in the final assessment in my 200-level Biological Diversity undergraduate science class at #LincolnUniversityNZ. I've spent most of today reading students' thoughts on this paper and its implications for NZ conservation. It's been an interesting […]
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June 30, 2025 at 9:01 AM
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It’s not every week that #rnz has a story about spider genitalia. This is such a week. Kate Curtis, a current PhD student at #LincolnUniversityNZ, has been hard at work figuring out all of the jumping spiders we have in Aotearoa-NZ. There’s estimated to be about 200 (most of them) that need […]
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May 9, 2025 at 10:13 PM
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Today my Biological Diversity class at #LincolnUniversityNZ toured the Allan Herbarium at #manaakiwhenua. It is NZ's largest pressed plant collection, a treasure trove of hundreds of thousands of botanical marvels.

Botanist Sue Gibbs talked about how the […]

[Original post on mastodon.nz]
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May 8, 2025 at 9:40 AM
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Introducing the New Zealand Bush Boba!

We found this pretty orange fungus last week during our survey of Mount Grand Station near Lake Hāwea, as part of the #LincolnUniversityNZ Masters-level Conservation Biology course.

The fungus is in the genus Heterotextus […]

[Original post on mastodon.nz]
A close photo of the shiny orange fruiting bodies of a fungus that has been rotting a dead stick. https://inaturalist.nz/observations/270592844 Lincoln University Masters student Che grins happily as she holds up a stick covered in bright orange fungi. https://inaturalist.nz/observations/270592844 Four students gather around a stick with pretty orange fungi growing on it. Everyone is having a good time photographing it and thinking up a common name for it. https://inaturalist.nz/observations/270592844 A close photo of the shiny orange fruiting bodies of a fungus that has been rotting a dead stick. There a couple of my fingers for scale (each orange cup is a little smaller than a finger nail). https://inaturalist.nz/observations/270592844
April 15, 2025 at 9:43 AM
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I'm at Lake Hāwea this week helping teach a field trip for our Masters level Conservation Biology course at #LincolnUniversityNZ. The surprise find so far has been the lizard team's discovery of redback spiders on the university's Mount Grand high country station.

These are Australian venomous […]
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April 9, 2025 at 8:29 PM
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#BiologicalInvasions expert Prof. Franz Essl from Austria gave a seminar today at #LincolnUniversityNZ. He showed a study of the global distribution of slugs and snails. Native molluscs show distinct biogeographic regions. Australasian snails were different from […]

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A photo of a bearded man, Prof. Franz Essl, and a presentation slide showing a map of the distinct communities of slugs and snails around the world. On the left are the native molluscs and the world is divided into many biogeographic regions. On the right are the naturalised (invasive) snails, and there's just a temperate and a tropic community.
March 26, 2025 at 8:07 AM
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Yesterday I saw my 2nd "common" ectemnius, on a roadside near Lincoln, #nz. This wasp is from Europe, Asia, & North America. It was first found in the southern hemisphere in Feb 2020 in Christchurch by Hannah Nolan, for her undergrad entomology collection at #LincolnUniversityNZ. It triggered a […]
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March 26, 2025 at 7:51 AM
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Is your day really complete without seeing some velvet worm feet?

I found this excellent wee critter on the coast-to-coast field trip over the weekend for my Biological Diversity course at #LincolnUniversityNZ.

Its name is Ooperipatellus viridimaculatus […]

[Original post on mastodon.nz]
A close-up photo of a velvet worm foot. It's pudgy and covered in purple and orange bumps and the end of the foot has two small claws. Photo from https://inaturalist.nz/observations/265611861 A close-up photo of a velvet worm foot. It's pudgy and covered in purple and orange bumps and the end of the foot has two small claws. Photo from https://inaturalist.nz/observations/265611861 Another close-up photo of a velvet worm foot. It's pudgy and covered in purple and orange bumps and the end of the foot has two small claws. Photo from https://inaturalist.nz/observations/265611861 A photo of the whole velvet worm, on moss. I photographed this on the floor of a native NZ forest near Moana. It looks like half-way between a worm and a caterpillar. It's covered in purple and orange bumps and it has lots of chubby legs. Photo from https://inaturalist.nz/observations/265611861
March 19, 2025 at 3:53 AM