forest

Tree trunks are important links between the forest floor and canopy, especially for flightless invertebrates that move from the forest floor to feed or breed in the canopy. Traps were used to sample invertebrates moving up and down on mahoe (Melicytus ramiflorus), hinau (Elaeocarpus dentatus), hard beech (Nothofagus truncata), and kamahi (Weinmannia racemosa). In 19 months 22 696 invertebrates were collected. Many unexpected groups e.g.

The five-minute bird count (5MBC) method was developed in New Zealand in the early 1970s by the DSIR for monitoring forest birds. The method has been undertaken consistently for nearly 40 years leading to a large resource of counts (over 200 000).

There has been considerable ongoing debate about the extent to which the impacts of introduced deer on native vegetation have replaced those of moa, and since the 1980s there have been major changes in thinking about the impacts of deer and ratites on ecosystems. Although it has long been known that deer caused a predictable sequence of changes in forest understorey composition, recent work has shown that the foliage of species preferred by deer contains lower concentrations of fibre – and decomposes faster – than avoided species.