Restoration for the silent majority

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Restoration for the silent majority

• Corinne Watts
• Landcare Research, Hamilton

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Why are invertebrates important?

• Move large quantities of material through the
  food chain
• Occupy all feeding guilds
• Food for reptiles, mammals, birds and other
  invertebrates
• Provide community or ecosystem services
• Decomposition
• Pollination
• Seed dispersal
• critical for ecosystem functioning

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Contribution to biodiversityHow many species are
there?
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Measuring insect diversityNo easy answer!

• Various trapping methods
• Many groups have been suggested as indicators
• Rapidly collect many specimens
• Processing samples is slow

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Example of sample size!!Restiad peat bog study

• 1 malaise trap 25 pitfall traps (beetles only)
• Sampled for 1 month (Dec) only
• Result 2,534 specimens sorted to 149 species
• Focus on
• Species richness
• Guild structure
• Community change

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Restoration and revegetationWhat about the
forgotten fauna?

• We are restoring or replanting native vegetation
  in human-dominated landscapes
• Will restoration benefit insect communities?

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Torehape restoration study

• Pitfall-trapped beetles on restored peat
  islands

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As vegetation cover increases, the beetle
community becomes more similar to that of the
buffer zone
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How can we increase insect diversity?

• Direct transfer of vegetation and associated
  communities
• Ensures non-dispersers colonise

Does it work?
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after 2 years
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Ecosystem function

• Litter decomposition
• 1,000 bags Sporadanthus stems
• Weight lost measured after 12 months

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Does direct transfer work?

• Increases litter decomposition rates compared to
  other restoration methods
• No obvious trends in insect communities
• Miners unlikely to use it

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Insect dispersal to restoration islands

• Potted Sporadanthus plants
• at various distances
• from the wetland

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stems per plant damaged by Fred the Thread
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Successful restoration

• Invertebrates are a significant component of an
  ecosystem
• Returning invertebrates as well as plants, in
  order to restore ecosystems their function

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Acknowledgements

• FRST
• Russell Gamman Mining
• LCR Maja Vojvodic-Vukovic, Neil Fitzgerald, Bev
  Clarkson, Louis Schipper, Richard Harris, Bruce
  Burns, Danny Thornburrow
• University of Canterbury Raphael Didham