Radio New Zealand - Te Reo Irirangi o Aotearoa

On This Programme

The Navy frigate Te Kaha in Perseverance Harbour, Campbell Island. Images: Alison Ballance

Subantarctic Series

Earlier this year Alison Ballance (right) stowed her duffle bag in a junior ratings cabin on board the New Zealand Navy frigate Te Kaha, and headed south to New Zealand's subantarctic islands. Operation Endurance was a joint Navy, Department of Conservation and Royal Society of New Zealand expedition to Campbell and Auckland islands, with the primary goal of delivering building material and staff for the construction of a boardwalk on Campbell Island.

Described by the United Nations Environment Programme as "the most diverse and extensive of all subantarctic archipelagos", there are five island groups under New Zealand's jurisdiction: the Bounty Islands, the Antipodes Islands, the Snares Islands, the Auckland Islands and Campbell Island. All were honoured with World Heritage status in 1998, and they are also National Nature Reserves under New Zealand's Reserves Act 1977; entry is by permit only.

Mud on Campbell Island track (top left); existing boardwalk (top right); timber ready for new boardwalk extension - Northwest Harbour and Dent Island in background, and Pleurophyllums in full flower.

To find out more, you can read an article by Stephen Jaquiery (Otago Daily Times) and the Navy.

Fish and Rivers

The research project Geological dates and evolutionary rates: using river vicariance to pinpoint the pace of molecular change is a Marsden-funded project, and a collaboration between the zoology and geology departments at the University of Otago. Biologist Jon Waters is the principal investigator, and geologist Dave Craw is an associate investigator.

DNA clocks provide an important method for determining time-scales of evolution. But the pace at which these clocks tick can be difficult to measure, particularly because DNA evolves at different rates in different species, and because rates may perhaps vary over time (time-dependency). Up until now, DNA clocks have been calibrated using ages of fossils, island formation, and a range of dated geological events. However, each of these methods potentially lacks precision for a variety of reasons, so this research project seeks to establish calibrations across a range of geological ages using a new, more precise method: river evolution.

Oligocene Drowning

New Zealand's landmass above water is just the tip of a much larger continent below sea level called Zealandia. Its visible shape has continued to change ever since it broke off from Gondwana more than 80 million years ago and drifted to its current position in the South Pacific.

Based on geological and biological evidence scientists agree that the deepest submergence occurred during the Oligocene, around 25 to 23 million years ago. In the 1960s, Sir Charles Fleming sketched maps that depicted Zealandia's changing shape and shrinkage. He recognised that wherever there was limestone (essentially an accumulation of marine organisms), there must have been ocean at some point. His drawings of the Oligocene period allowed for a considerable amount of remaining land in the north of the North Island and the south of the South Island.

Recently, geologist Hamish Campbell suggested that New Zealand may have drowned completely during the Oligocene, based on the wide-spread deposits of limestone across much of New Zealand's modern landscape. However, others disagree, pointing to a rich fauna of freshwater invertebrates and DNA sequences of plants such as kauri that would be impossible to explain if all land had disappeared. Dallas Mildenhall, a palaeontologist at GNS Science, hopes to provide answers through his research project that investigates plant DNA, ancient pollen and plant fossils.

Einstein's Violin

In a unique duet of lecture and concert, Oxford University physicist Brian Foster and violinist Jack Liebeck have joined forces to explore Albert Einstein's life, his involvement with music, and the way his ideas have shaped our concepts of space, time and the evolution of the universe. The duo toured New Zealand earlier this month, hosted by the Royal Society of New Zealand.

Walking upright

New Zealand-born Jack Harris led a team of researchers who discovered ancient footprints in Kenya that show some of the earliest humans walked like us and did so on anatomically modern feet 1.5 million years ago. Harris, a professor of anthropology at Rutgers University in the US, is director of the Koobi Fora Field Project in Kenya. He will be in New Zealand this month presenting his latest archaeological research in a series of lectures sponsored by the Allan Wilson Centre. His talk will focus on the deep evolutionary links between hominin physical attributes such as bipedalism and hand morphology with behaviour traits such as stone tool use, ranging patterns and enhanced dietary quality.

20 April: Dunedin, Hutton Theatre, Otago Museum, 5.30pm

21 April: Christchurch, Philip Carter Family Auditorium, Christchurch Art Gallery, 5.30pm

22 April: Wellington, Old Museum Block Lecture Theatre, Buckle Street, Massey University, 5.30pm

23 April: Palmerston North, Japanese Lecture Theatre, University House, Massey University, 5.30pm

24 April: Auckland, Lecture Theatre B4, Owen Glenn Building, 12 Grafton Road, University of Auckland, 6.30pm

Ecological Restoration

Eight New Zealand sites have been selected in the top 25 Australasian restoration sites by a cross-Tasman panel of ecologists in a competition run by the international Global Restoration Network. The contest was part of the preparation for a major ecological restoration conference being held in Perth in August. The sites are: Tiritiri Matangi Island, Maungatautari Ecological Island, Whaiwhakareke Natural Heritage Park, Te Urewera Mainland Island, Bushy Park Sanctuary, Mana Island Scientific Reserve, Zealandia-Karori Sanctuary, Rotoiti Nature Recovery Project, Fiordland Island Restoration.

Next Week

Royal albatrosses on Campbell Island; Adelie penguin genetics; daily and nightly rounds on Codfish Island - the final episode in the kakapo series; and palaeontologist Richard Holdaway on extinctions.