The conservation status of New Zealand Coleoptera

Assessing the conservation status of New Zealand's native terrestrial invertebrates

“…These and other factors are discussed in relation to some New Zealand invertebrate groups by four of the papers in this issue (Leschen et al 2012;Mahlfeld et al 2012;Stringer et al 2012b;Trewick et al 2012). There is some quantitative evidence that large size and flightlessness are associated with increased threat risk for New Zealand Coleoptera, but there is little or no such association with flightlessness amongst New Zealand's Threatened and At Risk Lepidoptera (Leschen et al 2012;Stringer et al 2012b).…”

“…The revised manual (Townsend et al 2008) has been used to generate listings for a wide range of taxonomic groups including vertebrates, marine invertebrates, plants, bryophytes, and is now applied to terrestrial invertebrates (Andrew et al 2012;Buckley et al 2012;Leschen et al 2012;Mahlfeld et al 2012;Sirvid et al 2012;Stringer et al 2012a;Stringer et al 2012b;Trewick et al 2012;Ward et al 2012;Yeates et al 2012). Here we summarise the overall numbers of terrestrial invertebrates that are now ranked in each of the new categories and discuss the changes that have occurred since the last published list.…”

The conservation status of New Zealand Hymenoptera

“…Because host-specific parasites and parasitoids must be at least as threatened as their hosts, we cross-referenced threatened species lists of Coleoptera (Leschen et al 2012), Diptera (Andrew et al 2012), Hemiptera (Stringer et al 2012a), Lepidoptera (Stringer et al 2012b) and Orthoptera (Trewick et al 2012) for known host records of parasitoid species. If such records existed it would suggest that such parasitoids would also be threatened.…”

The conservation status of New Zealand Lepidoptera

“…Major factors are thought to be: dependence on a threatened host or habitat (often small vulnerable areas); restriction to a habitat that is undergoing modification; susceptibility to predation or parasitism by introduced animals; and susceptibility to displacement by competition from introduced animals. Attributes that contribute to some New Zealand Orthoptera, Coleoptera and Gastropoda becoming threatened include flightlessness, large size, being odorous, having relatively long life cycles, food/host specificity and naïve behaviours to introduced predators (Leschen et al 2012;Mahlfeld et al 2012;Trewick et al 2012). Many of these factors and attributes do not apply to New Zealand Lepidoptera.…”