The zeal in Zealandia: revealing a lost continent

From an outsider's standpoint, geology appears to be a highly conservative science. As I have mentioned on numerous occasions, it seems astonishing that it took over four decades for Alfred Wegener's continental drift hypothesis to be formalised - via the paradigm-shifting discovery of sea floor spreading - into the theory of plate tectonics. I suppose that like evolution by natural selection, the mechanism, once stated, seems blindingly obvious in hindsight.

Regardless, the geological establishment appears to have been stubbornly opposed to the ideas of an outsider (Wegener was a meteorologist) who was unable to provide proof of an exact mechanism. This was despite the fact that the primary alternative, hypothetical submerged (but extremely convenient) land bridges, appear even more far-fetched.

Over the past few decades geophysical data has been accumulating that should generate rewrites of texts from the most basic level upwards. Namely, that the islands making up New Zealand are merely the tip of the iceberg, accounting for just six per cent of a mostly submerged 'lost' continent. Once part of the Southern Hemisphere's Gondwana, in 1995 the newly discovered continent was given the name Zealandia. Approximately five million square kilometres in size, it broke away from the Australasian region of Gondwana around 70-80 million years ago.

After a decade or two of fairly lacklustre reporting, 2017 seems to be the year in which Zealandia is taking-off in the public domain. First, the Geological Society of America published a paper in February. stating that Zealandia should be officially declared as a continent. Then in July the drill ship Joides Resolution began the two month long Expedition 371, a research trip under the International Ocean Discovery Programme (IODP). Scientists from twelve countries undertook deep sea drilling, gaining data on plate tectonics, palaeontology and climate history as well as research directly relevant to understanding the geology of the newest continent.

It is surprising then to learn that geologists first mooted the idea as early as the 1960s but that apart from some marine core samples collected in 1971, no-one undertook the necessary ocean-based research until very recently. Earth resources satellites have helped somewhat, but nothing could replace the evidence that emerged with deep drilling of the seabed. Therefore I wonder what has sparked the sudden interest in an idea that has been around for so long?

One possibility is the large amount of data that the international geological community required to prove the theory beyond doubt, coupled with the fact that this sort of research has little in the way of an obvious immediate practical benefit. It is extremely expensive to undertake deep sea drilling and few vessels are equipped for the purpose. Joides Resolution itself will be forty years old next year, having undergone several years' of refit to keep it going. Those areas of sea bed with potential oil or gas deposits may gain high-fidelity surveying, but compared to fossil fuels, fossil biota and sea bed strata research are very much at the whim of international project funding. In the case of the IODP, governments are cutting budgets on what are deemed non-essential projects, so it remains to be seen whether the intended follow-up trips will occur.

It would be disappointing if there was no further research as despite the acceptance of Zealandia, there is still a great deal of disagreement about what is known as the Oligocene Drowning. I first came across the notion of an eighth continent in the excellent 2007 book In Search of Ancient New Zealand, written by geologist / palaeontologist Hamish Campbell and natural history writer Gerard Hutching. The reason that over ninety per cent of Zealandia is underwater is due to the lack of thickness of its continental land mass - only 20-30km - making it far less buoyant than other continents.

But has this submerged percentage varied during the past eighty million years? There are some very divided opinions about this, with palaeontologists, geneticists and other disciplines taking sides with different camps of geologists. These can be roughly summarised as Moa's Ark versus the Oligocene Drowning, or to be more precise, what percentage, if any, of New Zealand's unique plants and animals are locally-derived Gondwanan survivors and how many have arrived by sea or air within the past twenty or so million years?

The arguments are many and varied, with each side claiming that the other has misinterpreted limited or inaccurate data. If Zealandia has at any time been entirely submerged, then presumably next to none of the current fauna and flora can have remained in situ since the continent broke away from Gondwana. The evidence for and against includes geology, macro- and micro-fossils, and genetic comparisons, but nothing as yet provides enough certainty for a water-tight case in either direction. In Search of Ancient New Zealand examines evidence that all Zealandia was under water around twenty-three million years ago, during the event known as the Oligocene Drowning. However, Hamish Campbell's subsequent 2014 book (co-written with Nick Mortimer) Zealandia: Our continent revealed discusses the finding of land-eroded sediments during this epoch, implying not all the continent was submerged.

It's easy to see why experts might be reticent to alter their initial stance, since in addition to the conservative nature of geology there are other non-science factors such as patriotism at stake. New Zealand's unusual biota is a key element of its national identity, so for New Zealand scientists it's pretty much a case of damage it at your own peril! In 2003 I visited the predator-free Karori Wildlife Reserve in Wellington. Six years later it was rebranded as Zealandia, deliberately referencing the eighth continent and with more than a hint of support for Moa's Ark, i.e. an unbroken chain of home-grown oddities such as the reptile tuatara and insect weta. With the nation's reliance on tourism and the use of the '100% Pure New Zealand' slogan, a lot rests on the idea of unique and long-isolated wildlife. If the flightless kakapo parrot for example turns out not to be very Kiwi after all, then who knows how the country's reputation might suffer.

What isn't well known, even within New Zealand, is that some of the best known animals and plants are very recent arrivals. In addition to the numerous species deliberately or accidentally introduced by settlers in the past two hundred years, birds such as the silvereye / waxeye (Zosterops lateralis) and Welcome swallow (Hirundo neoxena) are self-introduced, as is the monarch butterfly.

The volcanic island of Rangitoto in Auckland's Hauraki Gulf is only about six centuries old and yet - without any human intervention - has gained the largest pohutukawa forest in the world, presumably all thanks to seeds spread on the wind and by birds. Therefore it cannot be confirmed with any certainty just how long the ancestors of the current flora and fauna have survived in the locality. A number of New Zealand scientists are probably worried that some of the nation's best-loved species may have arrived relatively recently from across the Tasman; a fossil discovered in 2013 suggests that the flightless kiwi is a fairly close cousin of the Australian emu and so is descended from a bird that flew to New Zealand before settling into an ecological niche that didn't require flight.

Other paleontological evidence supports the Moa's Ark hypothesis: since 2001 work on a lake bed at St Bathans, Central Otago has produced a wide range of 16 million year-old fossils, including three bones from a mouse-sized land mammal. The diversity of the assemblage indicates that unless there was some uniquely rapid colonisation and subsequent speciation, there must have been above-water regions throughout the Oligocene. In addition, whereas the pro-underwater faction have concentrated on vertebrates, research into smaller critters such as giant land snails (which are unable to survive in salt water conditions) supports the opposite proposition.

So all in all, there is as yet no definitive proof one way or the other. What's interesting about this particular set of hypotheses is the way in which an array of disciplines are coming together to provide a more accurate picture of New Zealand's past. By working together, they also seem to be reducing the inertia that has led geology to overlook new ideas for far too long; Zealandia, your time has come!

Unwanted aliens: is a predator-free New Zealand realistic by 2050?

In a moment of half-baked madness worthy of Donald Trump, the New Zealand Government has announced a plan to make the nation predator-free by 2050. As can be imagined this statement has attracted a wide range of opinions, even from across various conservation groups. These vary from the extremely optimistic viewpoint of Forest and Bird advocacy manager Kevin Hackwell, who claims it is achievable even earlier, to the Green Party's conservation spokesman Kevin Hague, who publicised a University of Auckland study estimating the project's budget at an astonishing if not untenable NZ$9 billion.

With the government prepared to provide just one-third of the plan's funding, it's difficult to imagine which private sector companies would be willing to supply the lion's share over the next three decades. As expected, the response of New Zealand's political opposition has been to pour very cold water on the plan, including the claim that no nation has ever managed to wipe out its population of rats (Hamelin and its Pied Piper notwithstanding).

One of the most essential questions is what is defined as a pest in the context of this proposal?  The relevant Department of Conservation (DoC) page names three principle animal pests: possums, rats and stoats, with a further page expanding the list to other introduced animals and freshwater fish, including cats and dogs (both domestic and feral). Some of the species listed were deliberate introductions, mainly in the Nineteenth Century, whilst others came in accidentally under the radar - New Zealand's biosecurity protocols not always being as draconian as they are now.

A few statistics offer a frightening idea of the scale required: as of 2001 it was estimated that there were seventy million possums in New Zealand, eating 21,000 tonnes of vegetation every night. Needless to say, much of this material consists of endemic species such as pohutukawa and southern rata trees. This then has a knock-on effect for the native fauna that feeds or nests on these species, which of course is in addition to being direct prey for the possum.

Although cats and dogs might be thought of more as pets than pests, even in low numbers they can be devastating to native wildlife. A classic example is the extinction of the Stephens Island wren thanks to a number of feral cats, whilst it is thought that one stray dog managed to kill more than five hundred large brown kiwi in the Waitangi State Forest in less than a year.

DoC's Battle for our Birds scheme relies on aerial drops of poison and ground baits/traps to eradicate the key non-native pests. This year their target area was almost 900,000 hectares; to give an indication of the increase in scale necessary for a nationwide eradication, New Zealand is close to 27 million hectares in total. Perhaps the much-misused term 'paradigm shift' could be safely applied in this circumstance?

At this point it should be mentioned that there are varied opinions as to what the government's planned outcome is. After all, there have been humans living in New Zealand for over seven centuries, so there is little chance of any except the most remote locales returning to a pristine ‘natural' wilderness, even if we knew exactly what that meant. Having said that, the Pleistocene Park project in Russia is attempting something along similar lines. A small region of north Siberian tundra is being converted into glacial period steppe, using musk ox and other large animals as surrogates for extinct mega fauna such as mammoth and woolly rhinoceros. The resulting flora appears to be much more diverse and interesting than the unmanaged wilderness surrounding it, which is ironically the antithesis of what one would expect or hope for with untouched versus deliberately altered landscapes!

Then there's the scale issue: whilst possums, rats and mustelids are relatively easy to track and observe, small species such as wasps and argentine ants are far more difficult to locate, never mind eradicate. Although they don't inflict as much obvious damage to the native flora and fauna, they can nonetheless cause fundamental changes to the ecosystem. Wasps for example eat honeydew, which is an important food source for lizards and native birds such as kaka.

It isn't just insects that would be tricky to wipe out. The rainbow or ‘plague' skink was accidentally introduced from Australia about half a century ago and now seems ubiquitous in Auckland; I've seen it everywhere from volcanos to paddocks, gardens to garages, even inside a bookshop. Thanks to much faster reproduction and maturation rates than native equivalents, it appears to be rapidly out-competing them.

One issue that prevents a complete turning back of the clock is the extinction of dozens of species since the arrival of humans in the country. How can the ecosystem, especially food webs, maintain a long-term balance with key species missing? No-one is suggesting we bring in cassowaries to replace the nine species of moa. Of course, being large creatures they were probably none too numerous, yet there is an hypothesis that they may have been involved in an evolutionary arms race with lancewood, the juvenile trees being well-protected against moa browsing them.

Therefore any attempt to preserve a largely native ecosystem will need to ensure the food webs are fully-functional, with plenty of indigenous pollinators such as short-tailed bats and kereru (native pigeon). Key native species need to identified and preserved just as much as introduced ones removed. This in turn begs the obvious point that since evolution is an ongoing process, are we attempting to freeze the environment at a particular snapshot in time rather than allowing nature to take its course? Even accounting for punctuated equilibrium, natural selection hasn't suddenly stopped in New Zealand any more than it has elsewhere.

The pest-free project will presumably need to tackle species in a certain order, since if mustelids and feral cats are eliminated then rats will proliferate, whilst without rats as prey, the former species will be forced to look for alternative food sources instead; doubtless native birds would form the mainstay of this.

As I have discussed elsewhere, it shouldn't just be the enemies of the native poster species that are targeted. There are plenty of critters less famous than parrot kakapo and ancient reptile tuatara that deserve some attention too, with the endemic weta an obvious example (over twenty percent of its species are currently under threat). Invertebrates play an almost unknown role in nutrient recycling and waste disposal, as well as appearing on the menu of more conspicuous animals. Considering that the takahe, the largest species of swamp hen, was thought extinct for half a century, perhaps we shouldn't be surprised about how little is known concerning the size and condition of native creepy crawly populations. However small and insignificant we might judge them, we ignore their loss at our peril.

Also often overlooked are the native freshwater creatures. Competition comes in the form of the high number of invasive species that compete or predate on them. A key example is the aggressive gambusia, a Mexican fish introduced to eat all the mosquito larvae - which of course it fails to do. Interestingly enough, the DoC website excludes some introduced species from its list of pests: salmon and trout for example are categorised as 'sports fish'. Therefore is economics the government's primary motive for the pest eradication plan, rather than good old-fashioned conservation for the sake of it? After all, the extremely rare takahe was once given second place to herds of elk that had been introduced to serve as a big game animal.

There may be something in this. Mainstream politicians are renowned for their lip service commitment to environmental issues. Could it be that in the wake of the highly negative stories earlier this year concerning exceeded fishing quotas and river pollution, the government is fighting to redeem New Zealand's '100% Pure' brand image?  In addition, agriculture might benefit from an increase in native species' populations. An outstanding example of the latter is shown by a Federated Farmers of NZ estimate that native bees provide pollination services to the tune of NZ$4.5 billion per year!

Finally, we get to flora. As Bec Stanley, a curator at Auckland's Botanic Gardens, is keen to point out, the majority of people have plant blindness compared to their interest in animals. There are thought to around three invasive plant species for every four natives, with old man's beard, gorse, ragwort and nightshade being amongst the best-known culprits. These can smother and kill native plants, thus depriving indigenous animals of food. Despite being vital to the ecosystem, the war on introduced vegetation really seems to be underdeveloped compared to that against non-native animals.

It doesn't take much to upset the balance of at least a local-scale environment. The surviving remnants of mighty kauri forest are currently facing a disease thought to be caused by an introduced water-mould pathogen, a clear case of David conquering Goliath. Without careful consideration, the project to rid New Zealand of introduced pest species could end up doing more harm than good. The motives are potentially dubious and the research chronically under-funded. It remains to be seen whether there is the willpower to see it through or if it is just one more piece of political rhetoric that evaporates by the next election. Personally, I'm in favour of the idea, but uncertain of how realistic it is. Regardless, the citizens of New Zealand need to do their best, lest many more species join the ranks of moa, huia, adzebill and many, many others. After all, who wants their children living in an environment dominated by feral pigeons, rats and possum?