Past Events

Field trip to the DOC reserve at Nenthorn/Macraes.

Nenthorn/Macraes (inland from Palmerston) is best known as a site for rare skink conservation but there is also great botanical diversity, including over 25 threatened plants. It's a landscape of rolling tussockland dotted with lichen encrusted schist rock outcrops, shallow ephemeral wetlands, and the odd deep gully with shrubby remnants. We'll seek out some of the less familiar species and should encounter coral broom, wetland herbs such as Gratiola nana and Tetrachondra hamiltonii, and the rare grass Simplicia laxa. Leave Botany carpark at 8.30 am Sunday and return around 6 pm. Bring lunch and be prepared for cool changeable weather conditions. The mileage for this trip is expected to be about 100 km. Students are encouraged to apply for the student subsidy for this trip (download form at the Botanical Society of Otago website.).

The invisible world of floral odours: How plants attract, manipulate and deceive flower visitors

Talk by Dr Andreas Jurgens, Marsden Postdoc, HortResearch and Landcare Research Lincoln, New Zealand. Botany Department Seminar. Many plant species need insects as pollen vectors and floral characters are interpreted as adaptations to the most effective pollinators. Floral odours are found in the vast majority of flowering plants and they play an important role in plant-pollinator interactions. From a plant's perspective volatiles are used to attract, manipulate and even deceit flower visitors for the purpose of pollination. I will illustrate the role of floral volatiles with examples from different plant families that are associated with specific pollinator groups such as the Annonaceae (beetles), Asclepiadaceae (flies), Caryophyllaceae (moths), Ranunculaceae (bees). Some tropical Annonaceae flowers look like fruits and have a fruity aroma to attract small beetles. Stapeliad flowers (Asclepidaceae) emit a noticeable strong and fetid scent resembling that of carrion, urine or dung to attract flies - sometimes without offering any food. In moth-pollinated Silene species (Caryophyllaceae) with pleasant, perfume like odours we find a fine tuned system in which the time of odour emission as well as spatial patterns of the volatiles from a single flower guides flower visitors to the nectar source. In the buttercup family (Ranunculaceae) genera-specific pollen odour patterns may explain the association with pollen-specific bees. Union Street Lecture Theatre, (following the seminar by Dana Dudle at 12 noon).

Maintaining females in gynodioecious populations in Lobelia siphilitica

Genetic, ecological and morphological factors. A talk by Dr Dana Dudle, Biology, DePauw University, Indiana, USA. Union Street Lecture Theatre (upstairs)

Life on the rocks: Research and restoration in Limestone Glades and Abandoned quarries.

Talk by Dana Dudle, DePauw University. The 'limestone belt' in the southern part of Indiana is home to hundreds of abandoned quarries as well as rare ecosystems such as limestone glades. Using a quarry near DePauw's campus as a model I will explore opportunities for research and possible establishment of glade-like communities on abandoned quarries. At the Zoology Benham Building, 346 Great King Street, behind the Zoology car park by the Captain Cook Hotel. Use the main entrance of the Benham Building to get in and go to the Benham Seminar Room, Rm. 215, 2nd floor. Please be prompt as we have to hold the door open.

Maungatua Scenic Reserve

Mt Maungatua rises strikingly above the Taieri Plain. Once it was mostly covered in forest, but this was largely lost around 1300 - 1400 AD and has not re-established. In its place on the upper slopes are snow tussock grasslands in the west and mixed snow tussock-scrub in the east. A few stands of silver beech, Nothofagus menziesii, persist on the most sheltered sites of the western slopes, and it is in most gullies on the moister eastern slopes with mixed podocarps and beech in the larger gullies (Lee Ck and Mill Ck-Waipori Gorge) at either end of the range. On the summit plateau are subalpine scrub dominated by Dracophyllum longifolium, depressions with herb/moor communities, tarns and lichen-rich bogs and tors. Leader: Emeritus Prof. Alan Mark has established permanent plots to monitor change and will have handouts and plant lists available. Rain-date Sunday 11 March. 4WD helpful. Bring warm, windproof clothes.

Why study pollen?

A talk by Professor David Ferguson (William Evans Fellow), Director of Department of Paleontology, University of Vienna, Austria. Union Street Lecture Theatre (upstairs)

Coral reefs and their loss: Why it matters

A talk by Professor Mark Hixon (William Evans Fellow), Department of Zoology, Oregon State University, USA. Union Street Lecture Theatre (upstairs)

Free BSO BBQ

BBQ to welcome new botany/ecology students and new BSO members. At the front lawn, Botany House Annex, Great King Street (across the road from the main Botany building). Sausage sandwiches and drinks provided free by the Botanical Society of Otago. All BSO members welcome!

Dynamics and regulation of marine fish populations at multiple scales

A talk by Professor Mark Hixon (William Evans Fellow), Department of Zoology, Oregon State University, USA. Union Street Lecture Theatre (upstairs)

Global warming and YOU: What every citizen should know

A talk by Professor Mark Hixon (William Evans Fellow), Department of Zoology, Oregon State University, USA. Archway 4 Public Lecture Theatre

Plants and animals from a Miocene Maar lake in China

A talk by Professor David Ferguson (William Evans Fellow), Director of Department of Paleontology, University of Vienna, Austria. In the Geology Dept Common Room

Radical environmental change on Whangapoua Estuary, Great Barrier Island in 3500 years

A talk by Dr Yanbin Deng, Otago Archeological Research Cluster, Dept of Anthropology, University of Otago. A vegetation history and environment change from pollen reconstructions will be presented. A linear sequence of vegetation communities beginning with mangroves and followed by estuarine marsh communities composed of Juncus kraussii, Leptocarpus similis, and Baumea juncea was recognised in almost all pollen diagrams. Further transitions, from Baumea to a terrestrial system of Leptospermum shrubland or Cordyline/Dacrycarpus swamp forest, followed two main pathways associated with autogenic accumulation of peat and terrigenous sediment input respectively. Natural and human disturbances drive sedimentation rates, and interact with autogenic factors, to dictate vegetation transitions in these later stages. The intensive impact (mainly burning) during Polynesian times had a much greater effect on estuary than the pre-Polynesian natural processes, greatly accelerating plant succession. At the Zoology Benham Building, 346 Great King Street, behind the Zoology car park by the Captain Cook Hotel. Use the main entrance of the Benham Building to get in and go to the Benham Seminar Room, Rm. 215, 2nd floor. Please be prompt as we have to hold the door open.

End of year dinner

End of year dinner at the Asian Chinese Restaurant (43 Moray Place) following Adrienne's talk. RSVP to Robyn Bridges (robyn.bridges@otago.ac.nz) by 8 December

Western Australia's ironstones - caught between a rock and a hard place!

A talk by Adrienne Markey, Western Australian Department of Environment and Conservation. A presentation on the flora and conservation (or lack thereof) in banded ironstone formations, Western Australia. The landscape of much of the interior of Western Australia is characteristically subdued in topography, marked only by ranges of volcanic (mafic, ultramafic and felsics) and sedimentary rocks (banded ironstone formations and associated metasedimentary geologies). Whilst lacking the height and grandeur of the New Zealand Alps, these ranges are remarkable in that they interrupt the monotony of a vast, flat landscape and are composed of rocks formed well over two billion years ago. Some of these landforms have been a persistent topographic feature since the Cretaceous. Within these arid regions, they are a refuge for unique plants and floristic communities that thrive in microsites rich in trapped water and soils. Given the booming Asian economy and China's insatiable demand for mineral resources, these plants have found their existence perched on rocks of high quality iron ore to be extremely tenuous. This talk will outline current attempts to survey the vegetation of these ranges in the face of pressure from mining and grazing. At the Zoology Benham Building, 346 Great King Street, behind the Zoology car park by the Captain Cook Hotel. Use the main entrance of the Benham Building to get in and go to the Benham Seminar Room, Rm. 215, 2nd floor. Please be prompt as we have to hold the door open. Dinner will follow at the Asian Chinese Restaurant, 43 Moray Place.

Botanising in N.E. Newfoundland

A talk and slide show by Howard Clase, a retired Chemistry Professor from Memorial University of Newfoundland. Howard writes: "Our local society The Wildflower Society of Newfoundland and Labrador, has a week long field trip to a different part of the Province each summer, and this year we were exploring the NE coastline and a couple of offshore Islands. There are from 12 - 25 people on these trips with various levels of expertise from professional botanists through reasonably experienced amateurs (like us) to pretty flower lovers - but we all get on well and have a good time, nearly always making some fairly significant new discoveries. Recently there's a grass & Carex expert who comes over from Scotland and we have also had people from the Nova Scotia Flora Society join us." At the Zoology Benham Building, 346 Great King Street, behind the Zoology car park by the Captain Cook Hotel. Use the main entrance of the Benham Building to get in and go to the Benham Seminar Room, Rm. 215, 2nd floor. Please be prompt as we have to hold the door open.