Fortunate to be supported by the EAPSI program, which was jointly funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and the New Zealand Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE), I was working in New Zealand at the Applied Ecology Lab at Auckland University of Technology with Dr. David Towns. This was a companion study to the work in Hawaii.
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Data collection took place in the Honua Ranges outside of Auckland and on Great Barrier Island (GBI). Jarrod Cusens (pictured at left) from Applied Ecology, AUT came with me to help collect samples in the Honua Range. He was a skilled botanist and a huge help! I was fortunate to work with the Department of Conservation on Great Barrier and with the Auckland Council in the Honua Ranges, and everyone was abundantly helpful. We collected soil samples from plots in high medium and low density seabird nesting areas on Mount Hobson, GBI, as well as from our non-seabird site in the Honua Range. Weather was clear and cold for all of the sampling days except for the last one. The sites had different plants from the ones that I am used to in Hawaii, but the structure of the forest felt very similar.
The samples were prepared in the lab at AUT lab. I dried them and ground them into a fine powder for isotopic analysis at University of Waikato, NZ.