Biodiversity & conservation

The Biodiversity and Conservation team works on a range of projects aimed at protecting terrestrial biodiversity in New Zealand, and mitigating the impacts of invasive species on the natural environment and productive sector.

Our core skills and capability fall into three key areas:

Biodiversity management
	Biodiversity inventory and monitoring (including sub-Antarctic Islands) Understanding, protecting and restoring wetlands, drylands, forest fragments and rare ecosystems Sanctuaries and iconic species management Species recovery strategies, including genetics and assisted reproduction Conservation planning tools Biodiversity offsetting Incorporating biodiversity into urban design
Invasive Species management
	Management of weeds, especially through biocontrol Safe importation of new plant germplasm (to prevent new weeds) Managing invasive invertebrates in natural ecosystems Managing diseases of native plants
Molecular biology
	Understanding populations in order to better conserve or control them Diagnostics and systematics Functional genetics/genomics EcoGene® (DNA services undertaken for national and international clients for biodiversity and biosecurity applications)

Our team is responsible for managing the Miller Invertebrate Containment Facility at Lincoln, and the Pathogen Containment Facility currently being constructed at Tamaki. We also manage the Ecological Genetics Laboratory at Tamaki and Ecology Labs at Hamilton, Palmerston North and Dunedin.

Currently our team has 38 staff located at our Auckland, Hamilton, Lincoln, Palmerston North and Dunedin sites. We also have 9 Research Associates associated with our team, and a number of casual staff working with us at any one time.