Waikato awarded $1.4m in Marsden Funds

Media Release

6 September 2007

University of Waikato awarded $1.4m in Marsden Fund grants

Three University of Waikato research projects have won a total of $1.4 million in funding from the highly competitive, prestigious Marsden Fund.

Associate Professor Moira Steyn-Ross and Dr Alistair Steyn-Ross at the Department of Engineering, together with Professor James Sleigh of the University of Auckland, were awarded $620,000 over three years to test a radical new theory to explain how the brain combines disparate information to recognise objects.

The way the brain simultaneously processes colours, textures, shape and context, and combines information to identify what's familiar is known as the "binding problem" is one of the greatest challenges of neuroscience.

The researchers will investigate if the answer lies in the "gap junction" connections between the nerve cells, which allow electrical impulses to flow between cells, helping them to communicate. Recent research suggests that gap junctions are far more abundant in the brain than previously thought.

The team believes the electrical energy flowing between gap junctions might work alongside the better understood chemical communication between nerve cells to create networks of interconnected neurons.

The introduction of non-indigenous species is a major threat to biodiversity globally.

Freshwater invasive species ecologist Dr Ian Duggan, from the Department of Biological Sciences, received $170,000 over two years to investigate whether reservoirs are more readily invaded by exotic, invasive organisms than natural ecosystems.

He will also investigate whether "seeding" man-made aquatic habitats with native species is an effective tool to reduce the establishment rate and spread of non-indigenous organisms.

Extensive construction of reservoirs has occurred in New Zealand and around the world in the last century. In New Zealand by 1987, 20 percent of North Island lakes with a surface area greater than 0.1 square kilometres were manmade. Further new lakes for energy generation and filing of disused mines are planned.

Research shows that reservoirs appear to be commonly the first lakes to be invaded by passively dispersing non-native zooplankton, plants and algae. In North America, the zooplankton Daphnia lumholtzi, native to the old world tropics, invaded a Texas reservoir in 1990 and within ten years had spread across North America.

New Zealand has similar examples, including an Australian zooplankton Boeckella minuta that has spread through the Waikato hydroelectricity lakes and a Wellington reservoir.

The research will test the theory that introducing native organisms into new aquatic habitats at an early stage of reservoir fillings may accelerate their development and provide biotic resistance to invasion by non-native species at a particularly vulnerable time.

Relocating the endangered North Island kokako (Callaeas cinera wilsoni) to create new populations and to augment small populations is providing a unique opportunity to study the cultural evolution of song dialects.

Associate Professor Joseph Waas of the Department of Biological Sciences was awarded $655,000 over three years to examine why song dialects are important to kokako and other songbirds.

Like people, songbirds learn their vocalisations and, in many species, this creates powerful geographical variation or "dialects" Dialects are a focus of scientific interest because they powerfully influence communication, which mediates all social interaction such as mate selection and territory defence.

The work will provide insight into the importance of songbird dialects and learning processes that yield song-sharing and geographic variation in vocalisations. It will also advance understanding of how song dialects work and provide guidelines for making bird transfers more successful.

Questions to be addressed include whether song dialects influence the ability of kokako pairs to defend their territories or their choice of mate, and whether they impact on the settlement patterns of birds moved to new habitats.

Dr Waas's research builds on previous work on kokako singing behaviour in co-operation with the Department of Conservation, which resulted in an "acoustic anchoring" method with song playback to attract translocated kokako.

Up to nine populations of kokako will be moved by the department over the three-year research period and these, combined with two previously observed source populations and four recently established translocated populations of 14-21 birds, will be the focus of the study.

Ultimately, the research will improve the success of captive breeding programmes, boost the efficiency of efforts to create diverse populations of kokako, and allow wildlife managers to conduct transfers in a way that maximises the preservation of kokako cultural diversity.

ENDS

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