Skip to content

2021 Media Releases

  1. Release of Te Ao Māori climate change report

    A new report provides guidance for te ao Māori on climate change adaptation and mitigation. The report was produced by a multidisciplinary Māori research team working across many research institutions.

  2. Swapping time for space to track the impact of microbes on climate change

    Whether soils lose or gain carbon under warming temperatures remains one of the significant unknowns in climate change studies. In breakthrough research, Manaaki Whenua – Landcare researchers Manpreet Dhami and Gabriel Moinet have made an important finding about the response of microbes to increasin...

  3. The world is desperate for new antibiotics, and New Zealand’s unique fungi are a source of promising compounds

    One of the earliest antibiotics ever discovered, penicillin, originally came from a fungus. Mycologists are now studying the contents of ICMP (International Collection of Microorganisms from Plants) to investigate whether any of the 10,000+ fungi contained within have potential as new antibiotics.

  4. What effects must be avoided, remediated or mitigated to maintain indigenous biodiversity?

    New Zealand’s indigenous biodiversity is unique and complex, and it is declining and threatened. People and companies are often uncertain about what they should or should not do to help maintain it. A new paper sets out some comprehensive and concise criteria to provide guidance on what biodiversity...

  5. Life history traits explain vulnerability of endemic forest birds and predict recovery after predator suppression

    New modelling has disentangled the limiting effects of predation, forest area, and food availability to predict the outcomes we can expect for different native bird species in a predator-free New Zealand.

  6. State of New Zealand Garden Birds 2020 | Te āhua o ngā manu o te kāri i Aotearoa

    Numbers of some native and introduced garden bird species are increasing across New Zealand. This is good news for our urban environments, and may also indicate progress in habitat restoration and predator control in parts of New Zealand. The findings are contained in the State of New Zealand Garde...

  7. A new short video series focusing on the reconnection of rangatahi with their taiao

    Reconnecting Taitokerau rangatahi and tamariki with their taiao and Te Rarawa’s ancient ngāhere – the Au Warawara forest is the focus of a new short video series now being released.

  8. Fake clues: using misinformation about odour to protect rare bird species

    Mammalian predators rely primarily on smell as their main cue, enabling them to detect food from a distance. Smell is – usually – a reliable strategy for food location.