Counting keruru: can public surveys and competitions aid New Zealand conservation?

Whilst some other countries - the UK, for example - have dozens of general and specialised wildlife surveys undertaken by members of the public, New Zealand has comparatively few. Whilst this might seem odd, considering the Kiwi penchant for the great outdoors (not to mention the little matter of the endangered status of so many native species) it should be remembered that the nation has a rather small (human) population. In addition, New Zealand is no different from other developed countries, wherein environmentalists often appear at loggerheads with rural landowners, especially farmers.

Since agriculture forms a fundamental component of the New Zealand economy, any anti-farming sentiment can quickly escalate into unpleasantness, as even a cursory look at agriculture versus environmentalists news stories will confirm. Farmers are often reported as resenting what they deem as unrealistic or uninformed opinions by wildlife campaigners. But lest farmers consider this particular post being yet another piece of anti-farming propaganda, it should be noted that campaigns are usually driven by a perceived need for action in the face of government inactivity: after all, New Zealand is second only to Hawaii in the number of introduced species, many of which are in direct competition with, or predate upon, native ones.

Talking of competitions, this year's Bird of the Year contest has just been won by the cheeky, intelligent kea, the world's only alpine parrot. Run by Forest and Bird* and now in its thirteenth year, it aims to raise publicity for the plight of New Zealand's native birds and the wider environment they rely upon. With over 50,000 votes cast, this means approximately 1% of New Zealand citizens and residents entered the competition (assuming of course that non-Kiwis didn't participate).

The international level of awareness about the competition seems to be on the increase too, with the kea's victory even being reported on the website of the UK's The Guardian newspaper, albeit in an article written by a New Zealand-based journalist. The competition doesn't appear to offer anything to science, except a potential – if not unobvious - theory that the public's fondness for particular wildlife species is based upon their aesthetic qualities, with drab birds for example getting less attention than colourful ones. Then again, perhaps Forest and Bird are more interested in spreading their message rather than the results; as the old adage goes, there's no such thing as bad publicity. Indeed, the story of a Christchurch-based who tried to rig the vote in favour of the white-faced heron was reported by the BBC.

Another prominent example of the New Zealand's public involvement in environmental matters is the Annual Garden Bird survey, which began in 2007 and is run by the Government-owned Landcare Research. This more obvious example of citizen science states that the results are used to analyse population trends for both native and introduced bird species and so aid pest control programmes. However, it would be difficult to ascertain the validity of the observations, since less than 0.3% of the nation's gardens (or rather their owners) participate.

Whilst 5000 entries might be considerably more than could be achieved by other means, there are probably all sorts of details that are missed with this level of coverage. I have participated for three years now and have found that my observations do not agree with the reported trends. For example, last year's results show that the silvereye, blackbird and song thrush have declined in my area, whereas I have not noticed any such a drop-off for these birds -  and it's not as if I particularly encourage the latter two (non-native) species.

A more specific example of bio-recording was last month's Great Kereru Count, which claims to be New Zealand's biggest citizen science project. Clearly, they don't consider the Bird of the Year competition as science! Various organisations run this survey, which gained around 7000 reports this year. There are also continuous monitoring schemes, such as for monarch butterflies (which is interesting, as this is a far-from-endangered, recently self-introduced creature) whilst NatureWatch NZ allows anyone to supply a record of a plant or animal species, or indeed to request identification of one. The latter might not sound particularly necessary, but judging by how little some New Zealanders seem to know about their own environment (for example I've met Kiwis who cannot identify such common organisms as a tree weta or cabbage trees) this resource is probably essential in understanding the spread of non-native species.

With native species protection in mind, there are other, more direct, citizen science projects in the country, with everything from the Great Kiwi Morning Tea fundraiser this month to allocation of funding for predator control tools and traps – including in urban gardens - via the independent trust Predator Free New Zealand.

For an even greater level of public involvement in science and technological research, in 2015 the New Zealand Government initiated the Participatory Science Platform to aid partnerships between professionals and community groups. Three pilot projects are currently under way, with Dr Victoria Metcalf as the National Coordinator (or Queen of Curiosity as she has been nicknamed.) These projects are exciting because they involve the public from project development through to conclusion, rather than just using non-scientists as data gatherers. In addition, the ability to gain first-hand experience on real-world undertakings may even encourage children from lower decile areas to consider STEM careers. That's no bad thing.

Back to surveys. Although science communication (sci-comm) is in vogue, my own feeling is that participation is key to promoting science – the methods as well as the facts – to the wider public. Yes, some science is very difficult to understand, but there's plenty that is also easy to grasp. This includes the dangers facing species pushed to the brink of extinction by habitat loss, pollution, and introduced organisms. By actively involving entire communities, surveys and competitions can also play a part in preserving species whilst allowing a sustainable level of development.

Of course this requires a government with vision, but with New Zealand's Green Party gaining positions in the Jacinda Ardern-led coalition, perhaps the newly-formed New Zealand Government will pick up the slack after years of prevarication and inactivity. That way our grandchildren will be able to experience the cheeky kea and company for real, rather than just via old recordings. How can that fail to make sense? After all, at the lower end of the bio-recording spectrum, all it requires is for someone to make a few taps on their keyboard or smartphone. It's certainly not rocket science!

*Forest and Bird have actively lobbied the New Zealand Government in numerous cases to prevent environmental degradation via land swaps, mining and hydro-electric schemes. They have produced a volume on environmental law and a mobile app called the Best Fish Guide. All in all, they perform an immensely valuable contribution to ensure that development in New Zealand is sustainable and that the public are made aware of schemes that might impact the wider environment.

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!

Cow farts and climate fiddling: has agriculture prevented a new glaciation?

Call me an old grouch, but I have to say that one of my bugbears is the use of the term 'ice age' when what is usually meant is a glacial period. We currently live in an interglacial (i.e. warmer) era, the last glaciation having ended about 11,700 years ago. These periods are part of the Quaternary glaciation that has existed for almost 2.6 million years and deserving of the name 'Ice Age', with alternating but irregular cycles of warm and cold. There, that wasn't too difficult now, was it?

What is rather more interesting is that certain geology textbooks published from the 1940s to 1970s hypothesised that the Earth is overdue for the next glaciation. Since the evidence suggests the last glacial era ended in a matter of decades, the proposed future growth of the ice sheets could be equally rapid. Subsequent research has shown this notion to be flawed, with reliance on extremely limited data leading to over-confident conclusions. In fact, current estimates put interglacial periods as lasting anywhere from ten thousand to fifty thousand years, so even without human intervention in global climate, there would presumably be little to panic about just yet.

Over the past three decades or so this cooling hypothesis has given way to the opposing notion of a rapid increase in global temperatures. You only have to read such recent news items as the breakaway of a six thousand square kilometre piece of the Antarctic ice shelf to realise something is going on, regardless of whether you believe it is manmade, natural or a combination of both. But there is a minority of scientists who claim there is evidence for global warming - and an associated postponement of the next glaciation - having begun thousands of years prior to the Industrial Revolution. This then generates two key questions:

1. Has there been a genuine steady increase in global temperature or is the data flawed?
2. Assuming the increase to be accurate, is it due to natural changes (e.g. orbital variations or fluctuations in solar output) or is it anthropogenic, that is caused by human activity?

As anyone with even a vague interest in or knowledge of climate understands, the study of temperature variation over long timescales is fraught with issues, with computer modelling often seen as the only way to fill in the gaps. Therefore, like weather forecasting, it is far from being an exact science (insert as many smileys here as deemed appropriate). Although there are climate-recording techniques involving dendrochronology (tree rings) and coral growth that cover the past few thousand years, and ice cores that go back hundreds of thousands, there are still gaps and assumptions that mean the reconstructions involve variable margins of error. One cross-discipline assumption is that species found in the fossil record thrived in environments - and crucially at temperatures - similar to their descendants today. All in all this indicates that none of the numerous charts and diagrams displaying global temperatures over the past twelve thousand years are completely accurate, being more along the lines of a reconstruction via extrapolation.

Having looked at some of these charts I have to say that to my untrained eye there is extremely limited correlation for the majority of the post-glacial epoch. There have been several short-term fluctuations in both directions in the past two thousand years alone, from the so-called Mediaeval Warm Period to the Little Ice Age of the Thirteenth to Nineteenth centuries. One issue of great importance is just how wide a region did these two anomalous periods cover outside of Europe and western Asia? Assuming however that the gradual warming hypothesis is correct, what are the pertinent details?

Developed in the 1920s, the Milankovitch cycles provide a reasonable fit for the evidence of regular, long-term variations in the global climate. The theory states that changes in the Earth's orbit and axial tilt are the primary causes of these variations, although the timelines do not provide indisputable correlation. This margin of error has helped to lead other researchers towards an anthropogenic cause for a gradual increase in planet-wide warming since the last glaciation.

The first I heard of this was via Professor Iain Stewart's 2010 BBC series How Earth Made Us, in which he summarised the ideas of American palaeoclimatologist Professor William Ruddiman, author of Plows, Plagues and Petroleum: How Humans Took Control of Climate. Although many authors, Jared Diamond amongst them, have noted the effects of regional climate on local agriculture and indeed the society engaged in farming, Professor Ruddiman is a key exponent of the reverse: that pre-industrial global warming has resulted from human activities. Specifically, he argues that the development of agriculture has led to increases in atmospheric methane and carbon dioxide, creating an artificial greenhouse effect long before burning fossil fuels became ubiquitous. It is this form of climate change that has been cited as postponing the next glaciation, assuming that the current interglacial is at the shorter end of such timescales. Ruddiman's research defines two major causes for an increase in these greenhouse gases:

1. Increased carbon dioxide emissions from burning vegetation, especially trees, as a form of land clearance, i.e. slash and burn agriculture.
2. Increased methane from certain crops, especially rice, and from ruminant species, mostly cattle and sheep/goat.

There are of course issues surrounding many of the details, even down to accurately pinpointing the start dates of human agriculture around the world. The earliest evidence of farming in the Near East is usually dated to a few millennia after the end of the last glaciation, with animal husbandry preceding the cultivation of crops. One key issue concerns the lack of sophistication in estimating the area of cultivated land and ruminant population size until comparatively recent times, especially outside of Western Europe. Therefore generally unsatisfactory data concerning global climate is accompanied by even less knowledge concerning the scale of agriculture across the planet for most of its existence.

The archaeological evidence in New Zealand proves without a doubt that the ancestors of today's Maori, who probably first settled the islands in the Thirteenth Century, undertook enormous land clearance schemes. Therefore even cultures remote from the primary agricultural civilisations have used similar techniques on a wide scale. The magnitude of these works challenges the assumption that until chemical fertilisers and pesticides were developed in the Twentieth Century, the area of land required per person had altered little since the first farmers. In a 2013 report Professor Ruddiman claims that the level of agriculture practiced by New Zealand Maori is just one example of wider-scale agricultural land use in pre-industrial societies.

As for the role played by domesticated livestock, Ruddiman goes on to argue that ice core data shows an anomalous increase in atmospheric methane from circa 3000BCE onwards. He hypothesises that a rising human population led to a corresponding increase in the scale of agriculture, with rice paddies and ruminants the prime suspects. As mentioned above, the number of animals and size of cultivated areas remain largely conjectural for much of the period in question.  Estimates suggest that contemporary livestock are responsible for 37% of anthropogenic methane and 9% of anthropogenic carbon dioxide whilst cultivated rice may be generating up to 20% of anthropogenic methane. Extrapolating back in time allows the hypothesis to gain credence, despite lack of access to exact data.

In addition, researchers both in support and opposition to pre-industrial anthropogenic global warming admit that the complexity of feedback loops, particularly with respect to the role of temperature variation in the oceans, further complicates matters. Indeed, such intricacy, including the potential latency between cause and effect, means that proponents of Professor Ruddiman's ideas could be using selective data for support whilst suppressing its antithesis. Needless to say, cherry-picking results is hardly model science.

There are certainly some intriguing aspects to this idea of pre-industrial anthropogenic climate change, but personally I think the jury is still out (as I believe it is for the majority of professionals in this area).  There just isn't the level of data to guarantee its validity and what data is available doesn't provide enough correlation to rule out other causes. I still think such research is useful, since it could well prove essential in the fight to mitigate industrial-era global warming. The more we know about longer term variations in climate change, the better the chance we have of understanding the causes - and potentially the solutions - to our current predicament. And who knows, the research might even persuade a few of the naysayers to move in the right direction. That can't be bad!

Valuing the velvet worm: noticing the most inconspicuous of species

Most of the recent television documentaries or books I've encountered that discuss extra-terrestrial life include some description of the weirder species we share our own planet with. Lumped together under the term 'extremophiles' these organisms appear to thrive in environments hostile to most other life forms, from the coolant ponds of nuclear reactors to the boiling volcanic vents of the deep ocean floor.

Although this has rightly gained attention for these often wonderfully-named species (from snottites to tardigrades) there are numerous other lifeforms scarcely noticed by anyone other than a few specialists, quietly going about their unassuming business. However, they may provide a few useful lessons for all of us, including that we should acknowledge there may be unrecognised problems generated when we make rapid yet radical modifications to local environments.

There is a small, unassuming type of creature alive today that differs little from a marine animal present in the Middle Cambrian period around five hundred million years ago. I first read about onychophorans in Stephen Jay Gould's 1989 exposition on the Burgess Shale, Wonderful Life, and although those fossil marine lobopodians are not definitively onychophorans they are presumed to be ancestral. More commonly known by one genus, peripatus, or even more colloquially as velvet worms, there are at least several hundred species around today, possibly many more. The velvet component of their name is due to their texture, but they bear more resemblance to caterpillars than to worms. They are often described as the ‘missing link' between arthropods and worms but as is usually the case this is a wildly inappropriate term in this context of biological classification. The key difference to the Burgess Shale specimens is that today's velvet worms are fully terrestrial: there are no known marine or freshwater species.

Primarily resident in the southern hemisphere, the largely nocturnal peripatus shun bright light and requiring humid conditions to survive. Although there are about thirty species here in New Zealand, a combination of their small size (under 60mm long) and loss of habitat means they are rarely seen. The introduction of predators such as hedgehogs - who of course never meet peripatus in their northern hemisphere home territory - means that New Zealand's species have even more to contend with. Although I frequently (very carefully) look under leaf litter and inside damp logs on bush walks in regions known to contain the genus Peripatoides - and indeed where others have told me they have seen them - I have yet to encounter a single specimen.

There appears to be quite limited research, with less than a third of New Zealand species fully described. However, enough is known about two species to identify their population status as 'vulnerable'. One forest in the South Island has been labelled an 'Area of Significant Conservation Value' thanks to its population of peripatus, with the Department of Conservation relocating specimens prior to road development. Clearly, they had better luck locating velvet worms than I have had! It isn't just the New Zealand that lacks knowledge of home-grown onychophorans either: in the past two decades Australian researchers have increased the number of their known species from just seven to about sixty.

Their uncanny resemblance to the Burgess Shale specimens, despite their transition from marine to terrestrial environments, has led velvet worms to be described by another well-worn phrase, 'living fossils'. However, is this short-hand in any way useful, or is it a lazy and largely inaccurate term? The recent growth in sophisticated DNA analysis suggests that even when outward anatomy may be change little, the genome itself may vary widely. Obviously DNA doesn't preserve in fossils and so any such changes cannot be tracked from the Cambrian specimens, but the genetic variation found in other types of organisms sharing a similar appearance shows that reliance on just external anatomy can be deceptive.

Due to lack of funding, basic taxonomic research, the bedrock for cladistics, is sadly lacking. In the case of New Zealand, some of the shortfall has been made up for by dedicated amateurs, but there are few new taxonomists learning the skills to continue this work - which is often seen as dull and plodding compared to the excitement of, for example, genetics. Most people might say so what interest could there be in such tiny, insignificant creatures as peripatus? After all, how likely would you be to move an ant's nest in your garden before undertaking some re-landscaping? But as shown by the changing terminology from 'food chains' to 'food webs', in most cases we still don't understand how the removal of one species might generate a domino effect on a local ecosystem.

I've previously discussed the over-reliance on 'poster' species such as giant pandas for environmental campaigns, but mere aesthetics don't equate to importance, either for us or ecology as a whole. It is becoming increasingly clear that by weight the majority of our planet's biomass is microbial. Then come the insects, with the beetles prominent both by number of species and individuals. Us large mammals are really just the icing on the cake and certainly when it comes to Homo sapiens, the rest of the biosphere would probably be far better off without us, domesticated species aside.

It would be nice to value organisms for themselves, but unfortunately our market economies require the smell of profit before they will lift a finger. Therefore if their usefulness could be ascertained, it might help generate greater financial incentive to support the wider environment. Onychophorans may seem dull, but there are several aspects to them that is both interesting in itself and might also provide something fruitful for us humans.

Firstly, they have an unusual weapon in the form of a mechanism that shoots adhesive slime at prey. Like spider silk, is it possible that this might prove an interesting line of research in the materials or pharmaceutical industries? After all, it was the prickly burrs of certain plants that inspired the development of Velcro, whilst current studies of tardigrades (the tiny 'water bears' living amongst the mosses) are investigating their near indestructability. If even a single, tiny species becomes extinct, that genome is generally lost forever: who knows what insights it might have led to? Although museum collections can be useful, DNA does decay and contamination leads to immense complexities in unravelling the original organism's genome. All in all, it's much better to have a living population to work on than rely on what can be pieced together post-extinction.

In addition, for such tiny creatures, velvet worms have developed complex social structures; is it possible that analysis of their brains might be useful in computing or artificial intelligence? Of course it is unlikely - and extinction is nothing if not natural - but the current rate is far greater than it has been outside of mass extinctions. Losing a large and obvious species such as the Yangtze River dolphin (and that was despite it being labelled a ‘national treasure') is one thing, but how many small, barely-known plants and animals are going the same way without anyone noticing? Could it be that right now some minute, unassuming critter is dying out and that we will only find out too late that it was a vital predator of crop-eating pests like snails or disease vectors such as cockroaches?

It has been said that ignorance is bliss, but with so many humans needing to be fed, watered and treated for illness, now more than ever we need as much help as we can get. Having access to the complex ready-made biochemistry of a unique genome is surely easier than attempting to synthesise one from scratch or recover it from a long-dead preserved specimen? By paying minimal attention to the smallest organisms that lie all around us, we could be losing so much more than just an unobtrusive plant, animal or fungus.

We can't save every species on the current endangered list but more attention could be given to the myriad of life forms that get side-lined by the cute and cuddly flagship species, usually large animals. Most of us would be upset by the disappearance of the eighteen hundred or so giant pandas still left in the wild, but somehow I doubt their loss would have as great an impact on the surrounding ecosystem than that of some far less well known flora or fauna. If you think that's nonsense, then consider the vital roles that bees and dung beetles play in helping human agriculture.

Although the decimation of native New Zealand wildlife has led to protective legislation for all our vertebrates and a few famous invertebrates such as giant weta, the vast majority of other species are still left to their own devices. That's not to say that the ecosystems in most other countries are given far less support, of course. But without funding for basic description and taxonomy, who knows what is even out there, never mind whether it might be important to humanity? Could it be that here is a new field for citizen scientists to move into?

Needless to say, the drier climes brought on by rising temperatures will not do peripatus any favours, thanks to its need to remain in damp conditions. Whether by widespread use of the poison 1080 (in the bid to create a pest-free New Zealand by 2050) or the accidental importation of a non-native fungus such as those decimating amphibians worldwide and causing kauri dieback in New Zealand, there are plenty of ways that humans could unwittingly wipe out velvet worms, etal. So next time you watch a documentary on the demise of large, familiar mammals, why not spare a thought for all those wee critters hiding in the bush, going about their business and trying to avoid all the pitfalls us humans have unthinkingly laid for them?