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Ecosystem Process Staff - Janet Wilmshurst

Janet Wilmshurst

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Landcare Research
P.O. Box 40
Lincoln 7640

DDI: 03 321 9836
Phone: 03 321 9999

Fax: 03 321 9998
Email

Qualifications

BSc(Hons) Environmental Scienc, Plymouth University UK
PhD Environmental Science, Canterbury University

Role at Landcare Research

Palaeoecologist

Research interests

Impact and timing of early human settlement on vegetation and landscape stability in New Zealand and other East Polynesian islands using pollen and charcoal analyses, and radiocarbon dating
Reconstructing the diets of New Zealand's extinct avian megaherbivores, their role in past ecosystems, and the impact of their extinctions on the vegetation
Dating the arrival and impact of the human commensal Rattus exulans (Polynesian rat) by AMS radiocarbon dating of rat-gnawed seed cases from buried forest litter and peat deposits in New Zealand and other East Polynesian islands.
Detecting the impact of natural disturbance events (fires, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes) on past vegetation using fine resolution pollen, charcoal and sediment analyses.
Developing Holocene climate proxies: using macrofossils and testate amoebae from peat bogs to reconstruct past precipitation, and surface moisture conditions.
Establishing the effects of deer browsing on forest understorys in NZ, using fine resolution palynology.
Using fine resolution pollen analysis of forest hollow soil cores to examine stand-scale forest dynamics.

Professional affiliations/recognition

2008 -	Member of North Canterbury Quaternary Heritage Sites Advisory Committee
2000-2001	Leverhulme Visiting Research Fellowship. For 10 months research at the Quaternary Environments Research Group, University of Plymouth, UK
2001-2004	President of the New Zealand Ecological Society
1999-2001	Vice-President of the New Zealand Ecological Society
1992	Award for best student paper “Effects of Polynesian and European settlement on the Lake Tutira catchment, Hawke’s Bay, North Island, New Zealand. New Zealand Ecological Society conference, Christchurch
1990-1994	Commonwealth Scholarship, for PhD research at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand

Recent publications

Wilmshurst JM, Anderson AJ, Higham TFG, Worthy TH. 2008. Dating the late prehistoric dispersal of Polynesians to New Zealand using the commensal Pacific rat. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 105 (22) 7676–7680.

Power, M.J et al…Wilmshurst, J.M…. (83 authors) 2008. Changes in fire regimes since the Last Glacial Maximum: an assessment based on a global synthesis and analysis of charcoal data. Climate Dynamics 30: 887–907.

Wilmshurst, J.M., McGlone, M.S., Leathwick, J.R., Newnham, R.M. 2007. A pre-deforestation pollen-climate calibration model for New Zealand and quantitative temperature reconstructions for the past 18,000 yrs B.P. Journal of Quaternary Science 22, 535–547. (www.interscience.wiley.com) DOI: 10.1002/jqs.1135.

Turney C.S.M., Roberts RG, de Jonge N, Prior C, Wilmshurst JM, McGlone MS, Cooper J. 2007 Redating the advance of the Franz Josef glacier during the Last Termination: implications for synchronous global climate change. Journal of Quaternary Science Review 26, 3037–3042. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2007.09.014

McGlone, M.S., Wilmshurst, J.M., Meurk, C.D. 2007. Climate, fire, farming and the recent vegetation history of subantarctic Campbell Island. Earth and Environmental Science Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 98, 71–84.

Wilmshurst J.M. 2007. Human impacts in New Zealand. Te Ara: The Encyclopaedia of New Zealand. http://www.teara.govt.nz/TheBush/Conservation/HumanEffectsOnTheEnvironment/en

Turney, C.S.M. Kershaw, A.P. Lowe, J.J. van der Kaars, S., Johnston, R., Rule, S. Moss, P. Radke, L., Tibby, J., McGlone, M.S. Wilmshurst, J.M., Vandergoes, M.J, Fitzsimons, S.J, Bryant, C., James, S., Branch, N.P., Cowley, J., Kalin, R.M., Ogle, N., Jacobsen, G., Fifield, L.K. 2006. Climatic variability in the southwest Pacific during the Last Termination (20-10 ka BP). Quaternary Science Reviews 25: 886-903.

McGlone MS, Wilmshurst JM, Leach, H.M. 2005. An ecological and historical review of bracken (Pteridium esculentum) in New Zealand, and its cultural significance. New Zealand Journal of Ecology 29(2): 165-184.

Bestic KL, Duncan, RP. McGlone, MS. Wilmshurst JM and Meurk CD. 2005. Population age structure and recent Dracophyllum spread on subantarctic Campbell Island. New Zealand Journal of Ecology 29(2): 291-297.

Wilmshurst JM & McGlone MS. 2005. Corroded pollen and spores as indicators of changing lake sediment sources and catchment disturbance. Journal of Paleolimnology 34: 503–517,

Wilmshurst JM & McGlone MS. 2005. Origin of pollen and spores in surface lake sediments: comparison of modern palynomorph assemblages in moss cushions, surface soils and surface lake sediments. Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology 136: 1–15.

Wilmshurst JM & Higham TFG. 2004. Using rat gnawed seeds to independently date the arrival of Pacific rats and humans to New Zealand. The Holocene 14 (6) 801–806.

Wilmshurst, J.M., Higham T.F.G., Allen, H., Johns, D., Phillips, C. (2004) Early Maori settlement impacts in northern coastal Taranaki, New Zealand. New Zealand Journal of Ecology 28 (2) 1–13.

McGlone, M.S., Turney, C.S.M., Wilmshurst, J.M. 2004. Late Glacial and Holocene vegetation and climatic history of the Cass Basin, central South Island, New Zealand. Quaternary Research 62:267–279.

Wilmshurst, J.M., Bestic, K.L., Meurk, C.D., McGlone, M.S. 2004. Recent spread of Dracophyllum scrub on subantarctic Campbell Island, New Zealand: climatic or anthropogenic origins? Journal of Biogeography 31, (3) 401–413.

North, H., Wilmshurst, J.M., Burgham, S. 2004. Relationships between spectral reflectance and biophysical characteristics of degraded shrublands. International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (IGARSS) 3, 2054-2057.

Wilmshurst, J.M., Wiser, S.K., Charman, D. J. 2003. Reconstructing Holocene water tables using testate amoebae: differential preservation of tests and implications for the use of transfer functions. The Holocene 13 (3) 61-72.

Turney, C.S.M., McGlone, M.S., Wilmshurst, J.M. 2003. Interhemispheric climate change between New Zealand and the Northern Atlantic during the last deglaciation. Geology 31 (3) 223–226.

Moar, N.T., Wilmshurst, J.M. 2003. A key to the Cyperaceae pollen of New Zealand. New Zealand Journal of Botany 41 (2) 325–334.

Wilmshurst, J.M. 2003. Establishing long-term changes in takahe winter feeding grounds in Fiordland using pollen analysis. Science in Conservation. 228. 25p.

Wilmshurst, J.M., McGlone M.S., Charman, D.J. 2002. Holocene vegetation and climate change in southern New Zealand: linkages between forest composition and quantitative surface moisture reconstructions from an ombrogenous bog. Journal of Quaternary Science 17 (7) 653-666.

McGlone, M.S., Wilmshurst, J.M., Wiser, S.K. 2000. Late-glacial and Holocene vegetation and climate change on Auckland Island, subantarctic New Zealand. The Holocene 10(6) 719-728.

McGlone, M.S. & Wilmshurst J.M. 1999. A Holocene record of climate, vegetation change and peat bog development, east Otago, New Zealand. Quaternary Science 14, 239-254.

McGlone, M.S. & Wilmshurst, J.M. 1999. Dating intitial Maori environmental impact in New Zealand. Quaternary International 59, 5-16.

Wilmshurst, J.M., Eden, D. and Froggatt, P. C. 1999. Late Holocene forest disturbance in Gisborne, New Zealand: a comparison of terrestrial and marine pollen records. New Zealand Journal of Botany 37, 523-540.

Gomez B., Eden, D.N., Hicks, D.M., Trustrum, N.A., Peacock, D.H., Wilmshurst J.M. 1999. Contribution of floodplain sequestration to the sediment budget of the Waipaoa River, New Zealand. In: Marriott, S.B., Alexander, J., Hey R.D. (eds) Floodplains: Interdisciplinary approaches. Geological Society of London. Special publication 163, 69-88.

Newnham, R.M., Lowe, D.J., McGlone M.S., Wilmshurst J.M. and Higham, T.F.G. 1998. The Kaharoa Tephra as a critical datum for earliest human impact in northern New Zealand. Journal of Archaeological Science 25, 533-544.

Wilmshurst, J.M., McGlone, M.S. and Partridge, T.R. 1997. A late Holocene history of natural disturbance in lowland podocarp/hardwood forest, Hawke's Bay, New Zealand. New Zealand Journal of Botany, 35, 79-96.

Wilmshurst, J.M. 1997. The impact of human settlement on vegetation and soil stability in Hawke’s Bay, New Zealand. New Zealand Journal of Botany 35, 97-111.

Wilmshurst J.M. and McGlone, M.S. 1996. Forest disturbance in the central North Island, New Zealand following the 1850 BP Taupo eruption. The Holocene 6 (4), 399-411.

O'Sullivan, P.E., Heathwaite, A.L., Appleby, P.G., Brookfield, D., Crick, M.W., Moscrop, C., Mulder, T.B., Vernon, N.J., Wilmshurst, J.M. 1991. Palaeolimnology of Slapton Ley, Devon, UK. Hydrobiologia 214: 115-124.