Did you know that over 70% of Aotearoa New Zealand’s freshwater fish species are at risk or in decline? Our native fish face a tough battle against a range of challenges from invasive species to agricultural intensification. But there is hope!
Cawthron Molecular Ecologist Dr Georgia Thomson-Laing recently completed her PhD at Victoria University of Wellington, where she used paleolimnology and environmental DNA (eDNA) techniques to shed new light on the decline of our native fish. Georgia found that pressures are often lake and fish-specific, so understanding a lake’s unique history enables us to explore these relationships.
Georgia is continuing this important research through the Our Lakes, Our Future programme, where she co-leads a critical step with fellow Cawthron Scientist, Dr Lena Schallenberg, to enhance the protection and management of our native fish and lake health.
What to find out more? Below are the papers Georgia published from her PhD on this topic:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0048969724014050?via%3Dihub
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/edn3.473
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/brv.13013
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/fwb.13962
Thank you to the following organisations and people for generously supplying us footage for this video: David G. Schmale, Bruce Green (Cawthron) and Jeff Brass (GNS Science).
