Glenn H. Stewart

Lincoln University New Zealand · Department of Environmental Management

Private domestic gardens have been the site of diverse inquiry in both the social and natural sciences. Intersected by these inquiries this paper focuses on how ‘weeds’ are (re)constituted through gardening practices in domestic gardens in Christchurch, New Zealand. The paper arises out of an interdisciplinary ecological and social scientific study...

Urban ecological networks are defined differently in ecology, urban planning and landscape ecology, but they all have linearity and linkage in common. Early urban representations evolved from the constraints of deep ecological structure in the landscape to built elements that must work around natural linear obstacles—rivers, coastlines, dunes, clif...

Urban forests are increasingly valued for multiple benefits such as amenity, cultural values, native biodiversity, ecosystem services, and carbon sequestration. Urban biodiversity in particular, is the new focus although global homogenisation is undermining regional differentiation. In the northern hemisphere (e.g., Canada and USA) and in the south...

Ecological disturbances triggered by earthquakes and volcanic eruptions are of fundamental importance in structuring the temperate forests of southwestern South America and New Zealand. We review studies of the ecological effects of these tectonic phenomena and how they have been central to progress in the modern development of forest ecology in bo...

Altered fire regimes in the face of climatic and land-use change could potentially transform large areas from forest to shorter-statured or open-canopy vegetation. There is growing concern that once initiated, these nonforested landscapes could be perpetuated almost indefinitely through a suite of positive feedbacks with fire. The rapid deforestati...

A city’s planted trees, the great majority of which are in private gardens, play a fundamental role in shaping a city’s wild ecology, ecosystem functioning, and ecosystem services. However, studying tree diversity across a city’s many thousands of separate private gardens is logistically challenging. After the disastrous 2010–2011 earthquakes in Ch...

With rapid urbanisation and industrialisation, natural area fragmentation and habitats loss is inevitable. Under these circumstances, landscape connectivity and ecological networks become the focus of applied landscape ecology. A well-connected ecological network is believed to facilitate energy and matter fluxes, species dispersal, genetic exchang...

Private domestic gardens have been the site of diverse inquiry in both the social and natural sciences. Intersected by these inquiries this paper focuses on how 'weeds' are (re)constituted through gardening practices in domestic gardens in Christchurch, New Zealand. The paper arises out of an interdisciplinary ecological and social scientific study...

The Convention on Biological Diversity’s "Plan of Action on Sub-National Governments, Cities and Other Local Authorities for Biodiversity 2011-2020" established guidelines for national governments to follow in order, among other things, to assist cities to address the challenges of urbanisation and biodiversity loss. To evaluate the research needs...

Rates and spatial patterns of tree mortality were examined using long-term data from old-growth, mixed-species forests of the Maruia Valley, South Island, New Zealand. The aim of the study was to investigate patterns of tree mortality in two common, co-occurring species, Nothofagus fusca (Hook. f.) Oerst. and Nothofagus menziesii (Hook. f.) Oerst....

Peter the Great initiated a gigantic experiment to change an inhospitable natural wetland landscape into a major city and port by the construction of drainage canals and buildings, the spreading of fertile soil and the planting of millions of broad-leaved trees. During Soviet times the city was surrounded by high-rise ­apartment blocks. The city is...

The temporal and spatial patterns of tree establishment and stand disturbance history are often based on the interpretation of age-class frequency distributions. In particular, the presence of even-aged groups of trees is often used as compelling evidence of past disturbance. However, even-aged groups of trees may be indistinguishable in an age dis...

The volume, biomass, and carbon and nitrogen content of coarse woody debris were measured on three 1-ha reference plots in old-growth Nothofagusfusca (Hook. f.) Oerst.–Nothofagusmenziesii (Hook. f.) Oerst. forest on the South Island of New Zealand. Two decay sequences for logs and one for standing dead trees (snags) were recognised from two-way ind...

The book Plants and Habitats of European Cities is unique in describing , for the first time in a single volume, the flora and plant communities that occur in 16 cities of the European peninsula from London to Sofia and from Almeria to St. Petersburg. The chapters written by totally 25 experts start with a description of the natural features and hi...

Urbanization has destroyed and fragmented previously large areas of habitat. Small remnants that still exist in numerous cities will be unable to sustain many viable wild plant populations if they do not expand into the surrounding urban matrix. Residential gardens form a significant component of urban green space in many cities and therefore could...

A prerequisite for more sustainable urban design is an understanding of the current composition of urban plant communities and what 'drives' their compositional variation. Various approaches have been used in the past to describe urban plant community patterns, including phytosociological approaches in Europe and more quantitative urban-rural gradi...

Christchurch urban lawns are dominated by non-native grasses and forbs. However, we document considerable plant diversity; the total number of species encountered in our 327 sampled lawns was 127, although 80 species occurred in <2% of lawns. Seven distinct lawn communities were identified by Two-Way INdicator SPecies ANalysis using occurrence of 4...

Print copy of the book may be consulted or borrowed from the Library. Colonial cities have remarkable similarities in their urban biotopes and landscape designs. The similar urban planning principles, landscape architectural styles, urban construction, and planting designs have produced an array of urban habitats that are replicated around the glob...

The Flock Hill Workshop was held on 18-19th November 2009 at Lincoln University. The theme was Urban Ecology and Ecological Design: Perspectives in Integration and Future Directions The main goals of the workshop were to identify ways in which ecology and design can be successfully integrated and to determine future research and teaching directions...

The Flock Hill Workshop was held on 18-19th November 2009 at Lincoln University. The theme was Urban Ecology and Ecological Design: Perspectives in Integration and Future Directions. The main goals of the workshop were to identify ways in which ecology and design can be successfully integrated and to determine future research and teaching direction...

The vegetation of urban walls in New Zealand's cities has been little studied. We investigated the occurrence of wall vegetation in Christchurch and Dunedin cities, and determined whether vegetation patterns could be distinguished. This is a contribution to the ecological knowledge base that enables the development of management tools aimed at pres...

This paper outlines the roles that ecological concepts and the practice of landscape design have in achieving sustainable and healthy cities of the future. This approach is embodied in the Low Impact Urban Design and Development (LIUDD) movement. We describe studio exercises conducted for the students at Lincoln University in the Landscape Architec...

Low Impact Urban Design and Development (LIUDD) is a sustainable living concept. Urban sustainability and health are achieved through effective management of stormwater, waste, energy, transport and ecosystem services. The greening of cities by planting ecologically with local species is also a vital part of the overall well-being of ecosystems and...

Question: Does canopy tree regeneration response to different large disturbances vary with soil drainage? Location: Old-growth conifer (Dacrydium and Dacrycarpus), angiosperm (Nothofagus and Weinmannia) rain forest, Mount Harata, South Island, New Zealand. Methods: Trees were aged (1056 cores) to reconstruct stand history in 20 (0.12 - 0.2 ha) plot...

The remote identification of forest canopy gaps from Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) built from aerial photographs is potentially a viable alternative to ground-based field surveys. In this study a DEM-based gap-finding algorithm, given suitable experimentally determined input parameters, yielded canopy gap statistics for a study area that were con...

Russian text, in Cyrillic script. Compared to many countries, New Zealand’s Low Impact Urban Design and Development programme is unique because in the last 150 years New Zealand’s landscape has been dramatically modified. Thousands of species of plants and animals have been introduced into what was a pristine environment. Exotic trees, shrubs and h...

Christchurch, the second largest city in New Zealand, has varied natural environments including flood plains, sand dunes, wetlands, river banks, tidal estuaries and part of a volcanic crater rim (Christchurch City Council, 2004). Many of these environments have been modified by urban development, and currently the plant community covering the large...

Christchurch, the second largest city in New Zealand is a planned city on a coastal plain on the east coast of the South Island. The birth of the city and the subsequent century of development was characterised by colonial values and tree and garden planting with familiar European species along with those from Australia, North America, and eventual...

A second feature of Westland forests are the extensive, even-sized M. umbellata/W. racemosa stands that are prominent along the steep front ranges and middle reaches of valleys over at least 250 km (Stewart & Veblen 1982a; Rose et al. 1992). It has been suggested that many of these stands originated following a large Alpine fault earthquake (Hollow...

Summary • We used forest stand history reconstruction to infer the relative roles of disturbance and climate warming on the population dynamics of Nothofagus menziesii (silver beech) dominated tree lines in north Westland, South Island, New Zealand. • Stem recruitment in tree line forests over the last 300 years has been episodic, has tended to occ...

Using existing and new tree age data, we assess spatial variation in earthquake effects in Westland at regional and floodplain scales. In Westland there have been four major episodes of forest cohort establishment, three of which appear to relate to Alpine Fault earthquakes in ad c. 1460, 1610–1620, and 1717, and the fourth of which coincides with...

This report reviews the literature on regeneration requirements of main canopy tree species in Westland. Forests managed for production purposes have to be harvested in an ecologically sustainable way; to maintain their natural character, harvesting should facilitate regeneration of target species and ensure that their recruitment is in proportion...

There is a widespread perception that certain dominant ('key') tree species are declining on conservation lands in New Zealand. This concern is usually based on observations suggesting undesirable shifts in the demographic processes regulating the distribution, size and viability of tree populations. Our project was initiated to define a process to...

1 Large, infrequent disturbances can exert a dominant influence on the structure and dynamics of forested landscapes and in Westland, New Zealand there is evidence of at least three massive earthquakes within the last 650 years. We reconstructed the history of forest disturbance in two study areas, totalling 1412 ha, to quantify the role of such di...

To assess the sensitivity of New Zealand tree lines to climate warming, we compared the tree-ring growth characteristics and temperature relationships of silver beech (Nothofagus menziesii (Hook. f.) Oerst) at two elevations, ca. 1200 m (tree line) and ca. 1100 m. Modelled relationships between climate series and tree rings indicated that the main...

Six stands located on different land forms in mixed old-growth Nothofagus forests in the Matiri Valley (northwest of South Island, New Zealand) were sampled to examine the effects of two recent large earthquakes on tree establishment and tree-ring growth, and how these varied across land forms. 50 trees were cored in each stand to determine age str...

1. We used forest stand history reconstruction to infer the relative roles of disturbance and climate warming on the population dynamics of Nothofagus menziesii (silver beech) dominated tree lines in north Westland, South Island, New Zealand. 2. Stem recruitment in tree line forests over the last 300 years has been episodic, has tended to occur in...

Shoot architecture was quantified by measuring the "maximum silhouette area ratio" (R max). R max was calculated from the maximum silhouette area (or projected area) of the intact shoot, divided by the silhouette area of the leaves or phylloclades (leaf-like flattened stems) when they are removed from the shoot and laid out flat. Like conifers of t...

HOLDAWAY NOTORNIS 46 hatched and 59% of these chicks survived to fledge. Both hatching and fledging rates declined through the season. About half the pairs which laid in any year failed to rear a fledgling. Hatching success was greater in cultivated than pasture sites, but fledging success was similar at both sites. Trampling by stock, farming acti...

Patterns of mortality, recruitment, and forest turnover were investigated using permanent plot data from temperate forests in 14 localities throughout New Zealand. Tree mortality and recruitment rates were calculated from tagged trees ≥ 10 cm diameter at 1.4 m on individual 400 m2 plots, and turnover rates were calculated as the mean of mortality a...

We use four methods to investigate the earthquake history over the past 600 yr of the central Alpine fault, New Zealand. Trenches across the active fault trace at five locations identify two ruptures on the fault in the past 450 yr. Three other indirect indicators (episodes of landsliding and aggradation, dated either via 14C or from forest establi...

Woody debris performs many important ecological functions. Despite its functional importance, the quantity and dynamics of woody debris have been described for few forests, mostly from the northern hemisphere. In the southern hemisphere, information on woody debris is lacking. To address this, a summary is presented on what is known about woody deb...

Mature stands of trees dominate Westland forests and young stands are relatively scarce. To examine this pattern, we collate previously‐gathered data on the age and diameter of trees in 60 forest stands from throughout Westland, and use these data to estimate the dates at which approximately even‐aged cohorts of trees were initiated by major distur...

The form of the relationship between local species richness and the number of species in the surrounding region can be used as a test between competing theories of community structure. For 32 canopy gaps in New Zealand Nothofagus forest, we examined the relationship between the number of vascular plant species in 0.2-m² quadrats within the gap and...

Size and age structure analysis, spatial pattern analysis, and dis-turbance history were used to reconstruct the population dynam-ics of three stands dominated by Dacrydium cupressinum on glacial moraines in South Westland, New Zealand. D. cupress-inum and Prumnopitys ferruginea age structures in the three plots were not all-aged populations that w...

The dense podocarp forests of New Zealand, and in South West-land in particular, are unusual in that they are dominated by dioecious trees. Females and males of dioecious species perform different reproductive functions and consequently may use resources in different ways. This differential resource use can result in females and males differing in...

We examined whether the growth dynamics of two species can explain their coexistence. In particular, we examined New Zealand forests dominated by Nothofagus fusca and N. menziesii to determine whether both species can reach the canopy in tree-fall gaps. Stems in a gap and other stems (in pairs: one of each species, close together) were destructivel...

We quantified the effects of position within treefall gaps, gap size, and sapling size on sapling radial increment (most recent 5 yr, using tree cores) for two species of Nothofagus (southern beech) on the South Island, New Zealand (42 degrees 13' S). Mean radial growth rates of the two species and characteristics of the gaps in which they occurred...

A preliminary analysis of tree ring series on rimu (Dacrydium cupressinum) discs indicated that inferences of past disturbance history based on ages derived ffom increment cores must be made with caution. On the discs examined, extreme wedging and lobate growth led to age underestimates of up to c.25% along different radii. In addition to age under...

The relationships between forest composition, landforms, and soils were examined in a 2 km2 region of river terraces and lower hill slopes on Mt Harata, in north Westland, New Zealand. Ten forest communities were classified from 197 vegetation descriptions using TWo-way INdicator SPecies ANalysis (TWINSPAN). Landforms were classified at all vegetat...

. Tree size and age structures, treefall and canopy gap characteristics, and regeneration responses to treefalls were compared for three stands of old-growth beech (Nothofagus) forest dominated by N. fusca and N. menziesii on the South Island, New Zealand. Treefall gaps (up to 1000 m2) were most often caused by standing trees killed by drought and/...