This article describes Maungatautari, a volcano that’s become a native animal refuge in a sea of dairy pasture. New Zealanders have been first at many things. They may also be the first to create ‘islands on land’. That is, ‘ecological islands’ on land, anyway.
Posts Tagged ‘Biodiversity’
Nothofagus: relics from Gondwana
If you’ve ever walked through a forest of ancient Southern Beech (Nothofagus spp.) you can be forgiven for believing that you have just stepped into another world. You often find these trees growing as rings of giant trunks, covered in hundreds of epiphytes and mosses. But don’t be fooled. The rings of trunks are just the one tree! It’s called coppicing; the tree sends out new shoots radially from the base of the original trunk, and these shoot eventually grow into clones of the parent tree forming a ring of tunks, all belonging to the one tree.
Why frogs love puddles! The ephemeral breeders.
The summer afternoon storms of subtropical Queensland are an awe inspiring sight and sound of nature. If you’re lucky enough to have some trees and ponds around your house, the wet balmy night will be filled with the crawk – crawk – crawk of male Green Tree Frogs (Litoria caerulea) seducing prospective partners. But not all frogs are so lucky!
Biodiversity: what it is and why it’s important
The United Nations declared 2010 to be the International year of biodiversity. This year we will celebrate life on earth and the importance of biodiversity. It also presents an occasion for us to think more about biodiversity. What exactly is meant by biodiversity? Why it is so important? This article answers these questions and introduces the concept of biodiversity.
