I’m deep in the middle of the Kā Tiritiri o te Moana Southern Alps with Michael Knapp collecting beech leaves and ripping apart rotting logs on the hunt for giant collembola. Some 17 years later, these precious beech samples would allow Michael and I to answer one of the longest-running debates in New Zealand botany.
When Polynesians arrived on that fateful day in Aotearoa New Zealand some 750 years ago, around 80% of the country was covered in large tracts of forest that would have made an Ent proud. However, wind back the clock to the height of the last Ice Age 19,000-29,000 years ago and we enter an alien world. Sea levels were 120 metres lower, connecting the three main islands of New Zealand – you could walk from Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland to Ōtepoti Dunedin without having to take the Interisland Ferry across Raukawa Moana Cook Strait. The Lake Taupō super volcano had just erupted burying most of Te Ika-a-Māui North Island under ash, while at the same time the Southern Alps were covered in a vast ice sheet. Forests became climate refugees and retreated to warmer northern areas of both main islands, and White Walkers roamed the land…nope, sorry, that’s Game of Thrones. Continue reading “Climate refugee or hardy local? Solving a botanical mystery”