Biodiversity: Richness & Abundance
Finding hope in the wildlife garden (3 minute read)
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Kia ora e hoa - hello my friend,
We’ve been in near-drought conditions down here in the south, with water restrictions creeping in, so a day of rain yesterday was very welcome. I have completely given up on any vegetable gardening, but our apple trees are doing the best they’ve ever done and I’ve seen some potato greenery around so we may also get a small potato harvest.
Despite all this, I am calling this year’s garden a success. A couple of weeks ago, working from my Sit Spot, I saw a dragonfly and thought it looked a little different than usual. Maybe smaller? I wasn’t sure, so I took a photograph of it and zoomed in on the coloured wing spots.
Since spotting the first dragonfly in our garden a few summers ago we have seen an increase in the number of dragonflies but they have only ever been the yellow-spotted dragonfly, or Gray’s dragonfly (Procordulia grayii).
On this one, the wing spots were black! This means it was Smith’s dragonfly (Procordulia smithiiI), which is also an endemic species.
What’s so exciting about this is that species richness is one of the key ways to measure biodiversity (the other is species abundance). Species richness refers to the number of different species, no matter how many (or how few) there are. Species abundance refers to how many individuals are present of each species (e.g. 4 x tūī).
While I am not a scientist and haven’t done any actual scientific data collection, I am observant and I do document some of my observations through photography and drawing.1
Since seeing Smith’s dragonfly, I have seen a small flutter of kahukōwhai (yellow admiral butterflies), the first southern blue of the season, and yesterday I spotted two New Zealand grasshoppers along with a little cricket. There’s a small group of pīwakawaka (fantails) that hang out in our horse chestnut tree, and I cannot believe the number of damselflies I have seen this year!
It is so encouraging to see these little markers of progress. Currently I feel like there is bad news upon bad news when it comes to the environment, and I do worry that the general focus on climate change pushes other issues - like biodiversity loss - to the side.
So every time I spot a new species in the garden, or I notice a greater abundance of an existing species, I feel optimistic. Because it tells me that the little changes we’ve made in our garden - and the little changes you make in yours - are already making a difference for our native wildlife.
Happy gardening,
Zenobia💜
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I use the NZ Garden Bird Survey, and now the Big Butterfly Count, to make yearly observations, and have plans to do regular citizen science for my records. I have also started a perpetual garden journal à la
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Treasures of nature are always around us.
We just have to stop and look for them.
You do that so well.
I love these descriptions. :)