The 61st New Zealand Entomological Society Conference

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Theme: “Entomology: Te Tai Tokerau”

When: 17th-20th April 2012

Where: Forum North in Whangarei, Northland

 

About the conference

Tēnā koe. You are warmly invited to attend the 61st annual conference of the New Zealand Entomological Society to be held in Whangarei. The theme will be Entomology: Te Tai Tokerau but all speakers and topics are of course welcome!

When
The conference will run from Tuesday 17th to Friday 20th April, 2012. The Tuesday start will make it easier for those travelling by air to get here, but book your flights early as air travel to Whangarei is limited. Friday will be a field trip day.x

Where
Forum North (Caffler suite) in the centre of Whangarei. This is handy to restaurants and cafes in town and also within reasonable walking distance to accommodation on or near the waterfront.

Guest speakers

Malte Ebach

Malte C. Ebach is a Senior Lecturer and ARC Future Fellow in the Evolution & Ecology Research Centre, School of Biological, Earth & Environmental Sciences at the University of New South Wales and Research Associate at the Australian Museum, Sydney, Australia. He is also an editor of the Journal of Biogeography, Zootaxa and Editor-in-Chief of Species and Systematics Series (University of California Press). Malte heads a newly established biogeography and systematics research group at UNSW, which is currently focusing on Australasian biogeography, the nature of classification and trilobite systematics.

Chris Jenkins

Chris Jenkins has been Northland’s Conservator for the last eight years. In this role he is responsible for managing the work of the Department of Conservation’s four Area Offices and Conservancy Office in Northland. Prior to working in Northland he was based in Hamilton for a year working on the Natural Heritage Management System (NHMS) and prior to this worked for fifteen years in Rotorua, the last five of these as Conservator Bay of Plenty.

Louise Malone

Louise Malone is a graduate of the Universities of Auckland and London and has worked at Plant & Food Research and its predecessors since 1979. During that time she has worked on insect pathogens for pasture pest control, diseases of honey bees, impacts of GM plants on non-target insects, and methods for selecting non-target test species for assessing risks from new technologies. Currently, she is investigating arthropod biodiversity in New Zealand orchards. She is Science Group Leader for Applied Entomology at Plant & Food Research and an adjunct Associate Professor with the Joint Graduate School in Plant and Food Science at the University of Auckland.

Hori Parata

Hori Parata not only headed, but also created, the Resource Management Unit of Te Iwi o Ngātiwai. He recently left this role to pursue his studies, firstly completing his Masters, and then embarking on a PhD in kaitiakitanga at Te Whare Wānanga o Awanuiārangi. He is one year into his doctorate, but is also still very active in local Iwi affairs.

Haami Piripi

Haami Piripi is from Ahipara in the Far North and is affiliated to Te Rarawa, Ngapuhi and Ngati Kuri. In 1988 he was appointed as the first Maori employee of the Treaty of Waitangi Policy Unit which was the predecessor to todays Office Of Treaty Settlements. During 1991 he took on the role of Treaty Claims Manager in the Department of Conservation. In 1994 he took over the Asset Development portfolio in Te Puni Kokiri and facilitated numerous policy initiatives including the reform of the Maori Reserved Lands Act. He then spent three years working in Corrections Head Office where he spearheaded the development of Maori Focus Units within New Zealand Prisons. At the end of 1999 he was appointed Chief Executive of the Maori Language Commision, a post he held for seven years. He left the Commission in 2007 to return home as the Chairperson of his Iwi Runanga o Te Rarawa, where he is an elected negotiator of Treaty claims. He currently lives in Ahipara with his partner Miria Pomare and their three children.

Matt Symonds

Matt Symonds is a zoologist with research interests ranging from insect pheromone evolution to bark beetle ecology to bird macroecology. After completing his PhD at the University of Cambridge, he moved to Australia where he has been a post-doc and ARC Research Fellow at University of Melbourne and James Cook University. Since 2010 he has been a lecturer in ecology at Deakin University in Melbourne.

Jason Tilyanakis

Jason is a Professor of Ecology at the University of Canterbury, where he currently holds a Rutherford Discovery Fellowship. His research interests are in community ecology, particularly the situations under which biodiversity promotes ecosystem functioning and services, and the effects of global environmental changes on multitrophic interactions and interaction networks (e.g., food webs). He works primarily with parasitoids of aphids or Lepidoptera, and also with plant-pollinator interactions, though his students work on a range of study organisms from plants to vertebrates. He grew up and did his BSc and MSc in NZ, before moving to Germany for his PhD and conducting two years of research on cavity-nesting bees and wasps in coastal Ecuador. His current work seeks to unravel the factors that determine interaction network structure, and how this structure relates to community-wide functional outcomes.

Venue

Conference presentations will be held in the Caffler Room at Forum North in the centre of Whangarei. Adjacent to the Caffler Room is a smaller poster/meeting room and a foyer area for coffee breaks and lunch. Conference registration will take place in the foyer area.

Facilities
Forum North is a large arts and culture complex in the centre of town.It is also part of the Whangarei District Council offices. Pleasant areas where people can sit, relax, eat and drink are located throughout the complex both inside and outside the building. Wifi access is also available in the building. The nearest cafe is situated 40m away in the new library building.

Location
Forum North is situated in the centre of Whangarei in Vine Street just next to the old and new library buildings.
It is a two minute walk to the heart of town where you can find banks (ATM’S), cafes, restaurants, bars, as well as shops of all types.

The Entomological Society Conference organising commitee wishes to thank DOC for venue sponsorship.