Sorry for the gap between this and the last Kereru News. Quite a bit has happened with regards to kereru/kukupa/parea over the last 6 months, so this is a longish email. I’ve grouped items into three categories to make it easier find items of interest.
Please also remember to send me interesting items and news. If you would prefer to receive a word attachment please let me know. Until next the next Kereru News
Astrid van Meeuwen-Dijkgraaf
astrid@wildands.co.nz - Phone 04 2377341 Skype: astrid.van.meeuwen.dijkgraaf
Norwegian kereru itemsDoC on track of Norwegian kereru killers - 4:00 AM Tuesday Mar 30, 2010
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10635227&ref=rssHunting row: Keruru in Kiwis' sights too By TONY WALL - Sunday Star Times: Every year, between March and May, Department of Conservation rangers wage a quiet war below the radar against mostly Maori poachers who shoot kereru for food or cultural reasons and believe they have a customary right to do so....
http://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/3546577/Hunting-row-Keruru-in-Kiwis-sights-too
Report on kereru shooting accused dueThe Department of Conservation (DoC) hopes to complete a report today on the Norwegians suspected of having been involved in slaughtering protected native kereru in New Zealand.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10641352Norway won't charge kereru shooters - Saturday May 01, 2010
http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/norway-won-t-charge-kereru-shooters-3504569Other kereru new itemsMotorists warned to be wary of low-flying kereruNaturally fermenting fruit is thought to be the cause of a rise in kereru vs car incidents in Invercargill.
http://www.3news.co.nz/Motorists-warned-to-be-wary-of-low-flying-kereru/tabid/361/articleID/155234/Default.aspxBig crowd celebrates at Lake RotokareA pest free reserve and the closing of the 8.4 km predator proof fence were just two of the milestones celebrated at Lake Rotokare Scenic Reserve in November 2009
http://www.doc.govt.nz/about-doc/news/whats-new/conservation-taranaki/conservation-taranaki-december-2009/Successful breeding of Puketi robins Puketi Forest is continuing to benefit from six years of hard work and generous donations by volunteers and supporters of the Puketi Forest Trust.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/auckland/northland/local-news/bay-chronicle/3165538/Successful-breeding-of-Puketi-robins New Kereru Aviary at MatakaInjured and abused animals will always have a safe place to call home thanks to the Sanctuary.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/animals/news/article.cfm?c_id=500834&objectid=10616917&ref=rss Wellington Zoo the NestThe first native bird to be treated at The Nest - a kererū - was successfully released at Welly's Botanic Gardens this morning. Sweet!
6:51 PM Dec 15th, 2009 from web. Wellington Zoo Twitter
Picture from Te Papa Photo libraryThere are lots of photos of kereru and kukupa in the Te Papa photographic library including this one of an unknown woman with 3 Kereru (New Zealand Pigeons) on her arms, photo taken by Herbert Guthrie-Smith, Circa 1910
http://collections.tepapa.govt.nz/ObjectDetails.aspx?oid=24616&coltype=Photography®no=B.003954Fun to have a look through for other photos
Recent papers featuring kereruPredation and other factors currently limiting New Zealand forest birdsJohn Innes, Dave Kelly, Jacob McC. Overton and Craig Gillies
New Zealand Journal of Ecology (2010) 34(1): 86-114 © New Zealand Ecological Society.
This special issue reviews the current status of New Zealand ecology, updating the 1989 Moas Mammals and Climate special issue (NZJ Ecol 12 supplement). Both issues are available at
www.newzealandecology.org.nz/nzje/.
Abstract: Holdaway (1989) described three phases of historical extinctions and declines in New Zealand avifauna, the last of which (Group III, declining 1780–1986) was associated with European hunting, habitat clearance, and predation and competition from introduced European mammals. Some forest bird species have continued to decline since 1986, while others have increased, usually after intensive species-specific research and management programmes. In this paper, we review what is known about major causes of current declines or population limitation, including predation, competition for food or another resource, disease, forest loss, and genetic problems such as inbreeding depression and reduced genetic variation. Much experimental and circumstantial evidence suggests or demonstrates that predation by introduced mammals remains the primary cause of declines and limitation in remaining large native forest tracts. Predation alone is generally sufficient to explain the observed declines, but complex interactions between factors that vary between species and sites are likely to be the norm and are difficult to study. Currently, the rather limited evidence for food shortage is mostly circumstantial and may be obscured by interactions with predation. Climate and food supply determine the number of breeding attempts made by herbivorous species, but predation by introduced mammals ultimately determines the outcome of those attempts. After removal of pest mammals, populations are apparently limited by other factors, including habitat area, food supply, disease or avian predators. Management of these, and of inbreeding depression in bottlenecked populations, is likely to assist the effectiveness and resilience of management programmes. At the local or regional scale, however, forest area itself may be limiting in deforested parts of New Zealand. Without predator management, the number of native forest birds on the New Zealand mainland is predicted to continue to decline.
Keywords: competition; disease; food supply; fragmentation; inbreeding depression; population limitation
Legacy of avian-dominated plant–herbivore systems in New ZealandWilliam G. Lee , Jamie R. Wood, and Geoffrey M. Rogers
New Zealand Journal of Ecology (2010) 34(1): 28–47 ©New Zealand Ecological Society
Abstract: Avian herbivores dominated New Zealand’s pre-settlement terrestrial ecosystems to an unparalleled extent, in the absence of a terrestrial mammal fauna. Approximately 50% (88 taxa) of terrestrial bird species consumed plant foliage, shoots, buds and flowers to some degree, but fewer than half these species were major herbivores. Moa (Dinornithiformes) represent the greatest autochthonous radiation of avian herbivores in New Zealand. They were the largest browsers and grazers within both forest and scrubland ecosystems. Diverse waterfowl (Anatidae) and rail (Rallidae) faunas occupied forests, wetlands and grasslands. Parrots (Psittacidae) and wattlebirds (Callaeidae) occupied a range of woody vegetation types, feeding on fruits/seeds and foliage/ fruits/nectar, respectively. Other important herbivores were the kereru (Columbidae), stitchbird (Notiomystidae) and two honeyeaters (Meliphagidae). Cryptic colouration, nocturnal foraging and fossil evidence suggest that avian populations were strongly constrained by predation. With the absence of migratory avian herbivores, plant structural, constitutive defences prevailed, with the unusual ‘wire syndrome’ representing an adaptation to limit plant offtake by major terrestrial avian browsers. Inducible plant defences are rare, perhaps reflecting longstanding nutrient-limitations in New Zealand ecosystems. Evidence from coprolites suggests moa were important dispersers of now rare, annual, disturbance-tolerant herb species, and their grazing may have maintained diverse prostrate herbs in different vegetation types. The impact of moa on forest structure and composition remains speculative, but many broadleaved woody species would likely have experienced markedly reduced niches in pre-settlement time. Several distinctive avian-mediated vegetation types are proposed: dryland woodlands, diverse turf swards, coastal herb-rich low-forest-scrubland, and conifer-rich forests. Since human settlement (c. 750 yrs ago), c. 50% of endemic avian herbivore species or c. 40% overall have become extinct, including all moa, 60% of waterfowl and 33% of rail species. Numerically, avian herbivore introductions (c. 24 taxa) since European settlement have compensated for extinctions (c. 27 taxa), but the naturalised birds are mostly small, seed-eating species restricted to human-modified landscapes. Several naturalised species (e.g. Canada goose, Branta canadensis; brown quail, Coturnix ypsilophorus) may provide modes and levels of herbivory comparable with extinct species. The original avian and current introduced mammal herbivore regimes were separated by several centuries when New Zealand lacked megaherbivores. This ‘herbivory hiatus’ complicates comparisons between pre-settlement and current herbivore systems in New Zealand. However, predation, animal mobility, feeding mode, nutrient transfer patterns and soil impacts were different under an avian regime compared with current mammalian herbivore systems. Levels of ecological surrogacy between avifauna and introduced mammals are less evident. Ungulates generally appear to have impacts qualitatively different from those of the extinct moa. Because of New Zealand’s peculiar evolutionary history, avian herbivores will generally favour the persistence of indigenous vegetation, while mammalian herbivores continue to induce population declines of select plant species, change vegetation regeneration patterns, and generally favour the spread and consolidation of introduced plant species with which they share an evolutionary history.
Keywords: divaricate; filiramulate; folivory; island ecosystems; plant-herbivore interactions; seed predation
Mutualisms with the wreckage of an avifauna: the status of bird pollination and fruit-dispersal in New ZealandDave Kelly, Jenny J. Ladley, Alastair W. Robertson, Sandra H. Anderson, Debra M. Wotton, and Susan K. Wiser
New Zealand Journal of Ecology (2010) 34(1): 66-85
This special issue reviews the current status of New Zealand ecology, updating the 1989 Moas Mammals and Climate special issue (NZJ Ecol 12 supplement). Both issues are available at
www.newzealandecology.org.nz/nzje/.
Abstract: Worldwide declines in bird numbers have recently renewed interest in how well bird–plant mutualisms are functioning. In New Zealand, it has been argued that bird pollination was relatively unimportant and bird-pollination failure was unlikely to threaten any New Zealand plants, whereas dispersal mutualisms were widespread and in some cases potentially at risk because of reliance on a single large frugivore, the kereru (Hemiphaga novaeseelandiae). Work since 1989, however, has changed that assessment. Smaller individual fruits of most plant species can be dispersed by mid-sized birds such as tui (Prosthemadera novaezelandiae) because both fruits and birds vary in size within a species. Only one species (Beilschmiedia tarairi) has no individual fruits small enough for this to occur. Germination of 19 fleshy-fruited species, including most species with fruits >8 mm diameter, does not depend on birds removing the fruit pulp. The few studies of fruit removal rates mostly (7 out of 10) show good dispersal quantity. So dispersal is less at risk than once thought. In contrast, there is now evidence for widespread pollen limitation in species with ornithophilous flowers. Tests on 10 of the 29 known native ornithophilous-flowered species found that in 8 cases seed production was reduced by at least one-third, and the pollen limitation indices overall were significantly higher than the global average. Birds also frequently visit flowers of many other smaller-flowered native species, and excluding birds significantly reduced seed set in the three species tested. So pollination is more at risk than once thought. Finally, analyses of both species numbers and total woody basal area show that dependence on bird pollination is unexpectedly high. Birds have been recorded visiting the flowers of 85 native species, representing 5% of the total seed-plant flora (compared with 12% of those with fleshy fruit) and 30% of the tree flora (compared with 59% with fleshy fruit). A higher percentage of New Zealand forest basal area has bird-visited flowers (37% of basal area nationally) than fleshy fruit (31%). Thus, bird pollination is more important in New Zealand than was realised, partly because birds visit many flowers that do not have classic “ornithophilous” flower morphology.
Keywords: dispersal; frugivory; germination; Hemiphaga novaeseelandiae; honeyeater; kereru; Meliphagidae; mutualisms; pollination; pollen limitation.
Disperser communities and legacies of goat grazing determine forest succession on the remote Three Kings Islands, New Zealand P.J. Bellingham, S.K. Wiser, A.E. Wright, E.K., Cameron and L.J. Forester
Biological Conservation, Volume 143, Issue 4, April 2010, Pages 926-938 doi:10.1016/j.biocon.2010.01.001
Abstract Many remote islands are degraded as a result of deforestation and browsing of vegetation by introduced goats. Goat eradication is therefore a focus for island restoration, but there are few long-term records of change on islands after eradications. In 1946, three permanent plots were established immediately after goats were eradicated from Great Island (Manawa Tawhi), 60 km from northern New Zealand, and provide a 57-year record of change across a sequence of forest succession. Since 1946, the native and non-native bird communities that disperse 75% of the woody flora have increased from six to eight species and bird-dispersed woody plants in plots have increased from 7 to 11 species. After 1946, palatable trees were recruited in the plots. Unpalatable understorey sedges, present when goats were abundant, have persisted and may impede tree seedling establishment. Of the bird-dispersed woody plant species, 41% occur in the plots compared with 67% of the non-bird-dispersed species. Large-seeded species were unable to germinate away from parents until native pigeons Hemiphaga novaeseelandiae were present during the last decade. Forest succession is a consequence of interactions between the legacy of goat grazing and current disperser communities. Survival of seed-limited rare plants is not guaranteed in these circumstances. Although non-native goats no longer influence succession directly, non-native birds have been and remain important components of the disperser community. Our study supports the view that a whole-ecosystem understanding of the interactions between native and non-native species is needed to predict the consequences of eradications on islands worldwide.
Keywords: Carex sward; Dispersal limitation; Goat eradication; Kunzea ericoides; Pigeon; Seed size
