title: From Agincourt to the Avon: Ngaio Marsh and Henry V (1972)

authors: Houlahan, Mark

abstract: In the evening of October 1, 1972, the James Hay Theatre in the Christchurch Town Hall was officially launched with an impressively mounted production of Shakespeare’s Henry V, directed by Ngaio Marsh, internationally famous as one of the Queens of Crime fiction, and who had directed high quality Shakespeare productions in Ōtautahi/Christchuch since 1943. The production, using over 100 actors and featuring professional actors Marsh had trained who returned from England to perform, was a pinnacle of her production style, and each of the ten performances sold out. Marsh’s meticulously prepared promptbooks for the show, housed in the Turnbull Library, show every cut and move sketched by Marsh in advance. The Marsh archives also document reviewers’ reactions and recollections from the company, and contain a rich array of visual evidence: posters, production stills, and the official programme. In my paper I will use this data to evoke this lavish production. In 2019 the Town Hall re-opened after extensive restoration following the 2011 earthquakes, a process documented in The Christchurch Town Hall 1965-2019: a Dream Renewed (Canterbury UP, 2020), and the venue has begun presenting post-Covid entertainments. It is timely then to pivot back to 1972 and ask what we can learn from this production about the place of Marsh’s theatre in the development of performance culture in Aotearoa; and open out to the wider, ongoing questions as to the place of Shakespeare in our cultural fabric.

text: From Agincourt to the Avon: Ngaio Marsh and Henry V (1972) In the evening of October 1, 1972, the James Hay Theatre in the Christchurch Town Hall was officially launched with an impressively mounted production of Shakespeare’s Henry V, directed by Ngaio Marsh, internationally famous as one of the Queens of Crime fiction, and who had directed high quality Shakespeare productions in Ōtautahi/Christchuch since 1943. The production, using over 100 actors and featuring professional actors Marsh had trained who returned from England to perform, was a pinnacle of her production style, and each of the ten performances sold out. Marsh’s meticulously prepared promptbooks for the show, housed in the Turnbull Library, show every cut and move sketched by Marsh in advance. The Marsh archives also document reviewers’ reactions and recollections from the company, and contain a rich array of visual evidence: posters, production stills, and the official programme. In my paper I will use this data to evoke this lavish production. In 2019 the Town Hall re-opened after extensive restoration following the 2011 earthquakes, a process documented in The Christchurch Town Hall 1965-2019: a Dream Renewed (Canterbury UP, 2020), and the venue has begun presenting post-Covid entertainments. It is timely then to pivot back to 1972 and ask what we can learn from this production about the place of Marsh’s theatre in the development of performance culture in Aotearoa; and open out to the wider, ongoing questions as to the place of Shakespeare in our cultural fabric.

year: 2021-11-10

title: Assessing New Zealand's spider (Araneae) fauna, using DNA barcoding

authors: Binks, Nigel

subjects: Biodiversity

abstract: The ability to accurately monitor biological diversity is the foundation to most ecological research. However, the morphological identification of spiders, as with many arthropod taxa, is often complicated by phenotypic plasticity and sexual dimorphism. New Zealand’s spider fauna is highly endemic (97% of known species), consisting of an estimated 2,000 species. Given such high diversity, it is critical to seek cost-effective measures of assessing species diversity and distributions, and for the identification of cryptic unidentified taxa. 

The aim of my research was to determine whether the described spider fauna can be effectively delineated from unidentified taxa using DNA barcoding. Overall, I establish a molecular inventory for 100 described species and 71 additional unidentified species of spiders found in New Zealand. Using barcoding I determined there to be 59 native described species and classify 66 of the unidentified species as native, leaving 45 species which were recognised as having international distributions by taxonomic descriptions and/or from comparative DNA sequences from the Barcode of Life Datasystem (www.boldsystems.org). The repository of species presented here represent native species pertaining to 26 families and cosmopolitan species from 17 families of which species from the Araneidae, Linyphiidae and Theridiidae families are the most diversly represented in this study. This foundational inventory was used to assess the presence of spider species around the marginal habitats of 5 Waikato study lakes (Puketi, Rotoiti, Kohahuake, Waiwhakareke and Koraha), in relation to community assemblage variation across lakes, habitat (shoreline vs. pasture) and sampling method. 

The combined morphological and molecular approach to identification used here has demonstrated community composition assessments of spiders are viable. Furthermore, the study of these community assemblages revealed a greater diversity of habitat specialists among shoreline samples from lakes Kohahuake, Koraha and Waiwhakareke where greater vegetative heterogeneity along the shoreline provides a greater range of niches for spiders to occupy. This compiled species inventory indicates that New Zealand’s diverse Araneae fauna has been infiltrated by species with international distributions. Further, not all species are easily recognisable due to dissimilarities in their morphological appearance, or because they remain to be genetically identified, and therefore the extent of non-native species infiltration into New Zealand ecosystems is unclear. This lack of knowledge highlights an important area for future biosurveillance work. Lake ecosystems were selected for this study because a variety of spider species prey upon adult aquatic invertebrates as they emerge from the aquatic realm and into the terrestrial. 

Methods which provide complementary data for ranking lake ecosystems is a priority for biodiversity management in the Waikato region due to habitat fragmentation primarily associated with deforestation and subsequent conversion to pastoral habitat. Land use practices affect the distribution and dispersal of many native species and connected expanses of pasture provide opportunities for exotic species to infiltrate established food-webs associated with ecosystems of significant natural character. In conclusion, this molecular inventory provides a key foundation for a COI barcode library for New Zealand’s most commonly-encountered spiders and validates the ability of this identification method to discern between male, female and juvenile specimen from described and unrecognised species with native or international distributions.

text: Assessing New Zealand's spider (Araneae) fauna, using DNA barcoding The ability to accurately monitor biological diversity is the foundation to most ecological research. However, the morphological identification of spiders, as with many arthropod taxa, is often complicated by phenotypic plasticity and sexual dimorphism. New Zealand’s spider fauna is highly endemic (97% of known species), consisting of an estimated 2,000 species. Given such high diversity, it is critical to seek cost-effective measures of assessing species diversity and distributions, and for the identification of cryptic unidentified taxa. 

The aim of my research was to determine whether the described spider fauna can be effectively delineated from unidentified taxa using DNA barcoding. Overall, I establish a molecular inventory for 100 described species and 71 additional unidentified species of spiders found in New Zealand. Using barcoding I determined there to be 59 native described species and classify 66 of the unidentified species as native, leaving 45 species which were recognised as having international distributions by taxonomic descriptions and/or from comparative DNA sequences from the Barcode of Life Datasystem (www.boldsystems.org). The repository of species presented here represent native species pertaining to 26 families and cosmopolitan species from 17 families of which species from the Araneidae, Linyphiidae and Theridiidae families are the most diversly represented in this study. This foundational inventory was used to assess the presence of spider species around the marginal habitats of 5 Waikato study lakes (Puketi, Rotoiti, Kohahuake, Waiwhakareke and Koraha), in relation to community assemblage variation across lakes, habitat (shoreline vs. pasture) and sampling method. 

The combined morphological and molecular approach to identification used here has demonstrated community composition assessments of spiders are viable. Furthermore, the study of these community assemblages revealed a greater diversity of habitat specialists among shoreline samples from lakes Kohahuake, Koraha and Waiwhakareke where greater vegetative heterogeneity along the shoreline provides a greater range of niches for spiders to occupy. This compiled species inventory indicates that New Zealand’s diverse Araneae fauna has been infiltrated by species with international distributions. Further, not all species are easily recognisable due to dissimilarities in their morphological appearance, or because they remain to be genetically identified, and therefore the extent of non-native species infiltration into New Zealand ecosystems is unclear. This lack of knowledge highlights an important area for future biosurveillance work. Lake ecosystems were selected for this study because a variety of spider species prey upon adult aquatic invertebrates as they emerge from the aquatic realm and into the terrestrial. 

Methods which provide complementary data for ranking lake ecosystems is a priority for biodiversity management in the Waikato region due to habitat fragmentation primarily associated with deforestation and subsequent conversion to pastoral habitat. Land use practices affect the distribution and dispersal of many native species and connected expanses of pasture provide opportunities for exotic species to infiltrate established food-webs associated with ecosystems of significant natural character. In conclusion, this molecular inventory provides a key foundation for a COI barcode library for New Zealand’s most commonly-encountered spiders and validates the ability of this identification method to discern between male, female and juvenile specimen from described and unrecognised species with native or international distributions.

year: 2018

title: Responding to the message: Responsive written feedback in a Maori to English transition context

authors: Glynn, Ted

subjects: New Zealand

abstract: This paper reports on the writing component of a community and
school Maori to English literacy transition programme implemented in a kura
kaupapa Maori (Maori language immersion school. 21 Year 6, 7 and 8
students received responsive written feedback for their writing in English,
over a ten-week period, during their weekly independent writing time.
Students’ stories were mailed to a young Maori woman (the third author) in a
provincial city 100 kilometres from the kura . She was not known to any of the
students prior to the study, but she acted as an interested audience, and
responded in writing by focussing on the content or messages in students’
stories. She did not provide any corrective feedback on students’ writing.
The study employed an intra-subject multiple-baseline research design across
four school terms, with the responsive written feedback being introduced
sequentially to each of three student Year groups. Measures were taken of
total words written, adventurous words written, as well as holistic ratings of
audience impact and language quality. Data demonstrate positive gains in
both the quantity and quality of students’ writing, as well as maintenance of
high levels of writing accuracy for all Year groups.

text: Responding to the message: Responsive written feedback in a Maori to English transition context This paper reports on the writing component of a community and
school Maori to English literacy transition programme implemented in a kura
kaupapa Maori (Maori language immersion school. 21 Year 6, 7 and 8
students received responsive written feedback for their writing in English,
over a ten-week period, during their weekly independent writing time.
Students’ stories were mailed to a young Maori woman (the third author) in a
provincial city 100 kilometres from the kura . She was not known to any of the
students prior to the study, but she acted as an interested audience, and
responded in writing by focussing on the content or messages in students’
stories. She did not provide any corrective feedback on students’ writing.
The study employed an intra-subject multiple-baseline research design across
four school terms, with the responsive written feedback being introduced
sequentially to each of three student Year groups. Measures were taken of
total words written, adventurous words written, as well as holistic ratings of
audience impact and language quality. Data demonstrate positive gains in
both the quantity and quality of students’ writing, as well as maintenance of
high levels of writing accuracy for all Year groups.

year: 2005