ACADEMICS from across Australia and New Zealand, their students and locals with a particular interest in glowworms gathered for the first time at a conference on Friday.
GLOWWORMS were the topic of conversation at Waitomo on Friday as academics from across Australia and New Zealand gathered to share their knowledge with each other. The North Island trip around glowworm sites, which culminated in a hui at Waitomo Homestead, was the first time all involved had met together in person. And they’re hoping it will become an annual mark on their calendars. The hui was sponsored by the Royal Society of New Zealand with a catalyst grant, enabling key figures including University of Otago biochemist Professor Kurt Krause to get together. His work focuses on how things work including figuring out what makes the glowworm glow. NEED TO WORK TOGETHER “We realised that to really understand what’s going on we need to work together with everybody.” “We’re quite keen to make sure the glowworms are going to be around for our kids and their kids. “People study bioluminescence all around the world and they’ve been studying the firefly, sea pansies and all kinds of organisms. Well, this is our bug and we want to figure it out.” He said the meeting of academics, their students and interested locals was meant to happen last year, but just 12 hours before Australian entomologist Dave Merritt’s flight, the trans-Tasman travel bubble was closed due to rising Covid cases in New Zealand. Waitomo was a logical place to host the conference, Kurt said, because it’s the home of glowworms. It’s also where Shannon Corkill works as the environmental manager for Discover Waitomo. “It’s just awesome all connecting, understanding everyone’s different expertise and research and sharing that kaupapa together, that shared vision,” she said of the gathering. As part of her role, Shannon said she worked closely with University of Queensland entomologist Dave Merritt, who is the chair of the environmental advisory group. HUGE AMOUNTS OF DATA Shannon said some of Discover Waitomo’s environmental work involved gathering huge amounts of data from the caves including climate and glowworm population data. “We get together with the environmental advisory group every six months, look at all the data, look at what’s changing, what trends we’re seeing, and how that might impact how we’re managing the caves. “Obviously by running a tourism operation in the caves, we want to minimise any negative impacts as much as possible and where possible, look for restorative opportunities as well.” The environmental team was carefully managing carbon dioxide levels in particular, Shannon said, but the data was also providing valuable insights into how the cave microclimates work. Those insights came from interpretations by people like Dave, who said he was interested in glow worms because they were “very unusual” insects and felt an obligation to look after them. “They’ve got lots of adaptations that we’re interested in – how they glow, their web-spinning behaviour, all sorts of things.” While Dave and Shannon had worked together extensively, others at the conference knew about each other before Covid but had not worked together. “It was sort of the lockdown that forced us together,” Dave said. “I was aware of Kurt’s work but never reached out and vice versa. “Things started moving before the lockdown, but the lockdown made it really obvious that we had to collaborate pretty closely with one another because we couldn’t do the travel we needed to do.” COLLABORATIVE COLLECTING That was when Dave linked up with fly expert Dr Julia Kasper from Te Papa, whom he involved in collecting samples when he wasn’t able to during lockdowns. “I was planning to come to New Zealand to collect from specific locations for a particular study, but I couldn’t so I contacted Julia and I said ‘are you interested in coming in on this project?’ It just happened that she was very interested.” Julia said she was glad to be part of the group because science communication was really important to her, especially in her role with the museum. “The glowworm is so glamorous and for me, it’s a hero for the public to engage with everything that is around it. It’s a privilege for me to study it.”
