THE spur-winged plover, Vanellus miles, has a distribution that extends from New Guinea along the east coast of Australia to New Zealand.
The wader self introduced to New Zealand in the 1930s, and has expanded its range in Australia as well as New Zealand over the last few decades.
Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace suggested the current distribution and abundance of plant and animal species is a consequence of evolution rather than Divine intervention. Consequent to this is the idea that distributions will change, they are not constant.
While the theory of evolution by natural selection is now accepted by the mainstream as a best explanation for the diversity of life on planet Earth, the very recent preoccupation with temperature and in particular the idea that small changes in temperature may result in the extinction of particular species, does not sit well with their theories on the distribution of the many species with a very broad geographic range; like the spur-winged plover. [Read more…] about Temperature Gradients and Spur-winged Plovers
An analysis of egg industry data has confirmed there are not enough free-range layer hens in Australia to produce the number of eggs labelled free-range. Read 
GREEN tree ants, Oecophylla smaragdina, don’t leave their dead lying around. 
IN the Sierra Nevada, there are Whitebark Pines, Pinus albicaulis, thought to be thousands of years old now growing at an altitude where seedlings can’t survive winter. So, they reproduce from suckers. Larry Fields told us the story earlier this week.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD has worked in industry and government. She is currently researching a novel technique for long-range weather forecasting funded by the B. Macfie Family Foundation.