The long-tailed bat (Chalinolobus tuberculatus) is a threatened species endemic to New Zealand. Historical anecdotes indicate that long-tailed bat populations have declined. However, it is unknown if all populations have declined and if declines are historical or ongoing. Thus, the development and implementation of a national network of long-tailed bat monitoring sites is a priority of the Department of Conservation's Bat Recovery Plan. Potentially, information gained from a national monitoring programme would assist conservation managers to target resources towards those areas where bat populations are declining and provide baseline information to assist managers to gauge the impact of management techniques on bat populations. Of critical importance is that unless it can be demonstrated that long-tailed bat populations have declined and that, that decline is real, management will not be initiated. The aim of this research was to investigate aspects of the ecology of long-tailed bats that would influence the development of a monitoring programme. The distribution, roost selection, habitat use, and activity patterns of a long-tailed bat population that persisted in the Waitakere Ranges, Auckland, were investigated. A study of the Waitakere Ranges long-tailed bat population was significant because (1) the Waitakere Ranges is the northern most location at which long-tailed bats have been researched; (2) the study was the first to be conducted on a long-tailed bat population that persisted in kauri Agathis australis dominated forest remnants; (3) the long-tailed bat population in the Waitakere Ranges is the only known extant population in close proximity to a major urban area; and (4) the factors that are attributed to long-tailed bat population declines (i.e., forest clearance, predation and urbanisation; O'Donnell, 2000) are likely to be ongoing and intensified in the Waitakere Ranges. Twenty roosts were located. Most roosts (85%) were in kauri, 2 were in mature rimu (Dacrydium cupressinum) and 1 was in a kahikatea (Dacrycarpus dacrydioides). All roosts were in large, live, emergent trees. Mean height of roost trees was 38.4 ± 1.3 m and average DBH was 186 ± 12 cm. The entrances of six roost cavities were identified all were located in minor lateral branches in the crown of the tree and were primarily near the tip of branches. Roosts were a mean height of 24.6 ± 3.7 m above ground level. It was argued that roosts in the crowns of kauri were inaccessible to terrestrial mammalian predators. Twenty-eight roost watches were conducted. The average number of bats counted leaving roosts was 10.0 ± 1.5 (maximum = 24). Roosts were occupied by radio-tagged bats for an average of 2.0 ± 0.4 days, and 11 (55 %) were occupied for only one day. Roost size was the lowest reported for long-tailed bats. Roost switching also appeared higher than in other populations that have been studied. It was argued that morepork predation may have a significant impact on the population viability of the population. As in other studies long-tailed bats were found to forage over modified habitats including over farmland, dwellings, orchards and along streams and roads with little vehicular traffic. Long-tailed bats foraged throughout the Waitakere Ranges and their foothills. Bat activity was highly variable. Of the environmental variables analysed, temperature was found to have the greatest influence on bat activity. There were seasonal and habitat influences on bat activity. The relationship between sample sizes, variation in bat detection rates and desired statistical power using automatic bat detectors to monitor populations of bats was explored. A power analysis on activity data collected with automatic bat detectors indicated that declines in bat populations would need to be reflected in declines of greater than fifty percent in bat activity before monitoring programmes would have sufficient power to detect declines in activity. It was recommended that monitoring programmes should concentrate on intensive presence – absence surveys rather than long-term studies at a few sites.

De nombreuses études en phytoremédiation visent à accroître le prélèvement des métaux par les plantes pour dépolluer les sols. Ce travail porte sur une nouvelle approche de phytoremédiation appelée Jardins Filtrants qui consiste à traiter le sol dans des casiers végétalisés par des plantes de milieux humides (Phragmites australis, Iris pseudacorus et Salix viminalis) et irrigués de manière à imposer une alternance des conditions hydromorphie-assèchement afin d'accroître la solubilité de métaux dans le sol et de les extraire par lixiviation. Dans une expérience pilote de seize mois, cette approche a été appliquée pour la phytoremédiation de Zn, Cu et Pb d'un sol agricole fortement pollué par l'épandage d'eaux usées. Le bilan de masse des métaux dans les systèmes sol-plante a montré que seule une quantité non-significative des métaux a été accumulée dans la biomasse des plantes. Une quantité importante des métaux a été éliminée du sol via la phytolixiviation résultant de l'interaction de l'activité racinaire avec l'irrigation. Un traitement chimique complémentaire au citrate permet d'augmenter la lixiviation. Les mécanismes de transformations de Zn et Cu impliqués dans cette phytoremédiation ont été mis en évidence par combinaison des techniques analytiques sur la source synchrotron à micro- (µXRF, µXRD, µEXAFS) et macro-échelle (EXAFS) couplée aux analyses chimiques, permettant d'identifier et quantifier les formes des métaux dans le sol. Dans le sol initial, le zinc a été majoritairement sous formes de minéraux secondaires (Zn-ferrihydrite, Zn-phosphate et Zn-phyllosilicate modélisé par Zn-kérolite) et le cuivre a été associé essentiellement à la matière organique. L'activité racinaire dans les conditions hydromorphie-assèchement a profondément modifié la spéciation des métaux. Zn-ferrihydrite, une des formes majoritaires de Zn, a été complètement dissoute. La dissolution réductive de cet oxyhydroxyde de fer, favorisée par les conditions d'hydromorphie, a induit la lixiviation de Zn. Une partie de Zn solubilisé a coprécipité avec Fe en un autre oxyhydroxyde de fer zincifère moins soluble, Zn-goethite substituée, dans les conditions oxydantes et avec assistance des racines formant des plaques de goethite en défense contre l'excès de métaux dissous. De plus, les nouvelles particules de Zn métallique et ZnO ont été découvertes dans la rhizosphère, en faible quantité. L'oxydation de la matière organique a induit l'excès de Cu cationique toxique. En réponse au stress oxydant, ce cuivre a été biotransformé par les racines en association avec des mycorhizes en nanoparticules de Cu métallique, en quantité importante. Ce nouveau mode de biominéralisation peut être typique des plantes de milieux humides. Cette nouvelle voie de phytoremédiation implique principalement la phytolixiviation induisant la solubilisation des métaux et leur lixiviation et la phytotransformation, due pour une part à la phytodétoxication, conduisant la conversion des métaux toxiques en formes peu solubles.

In this thesis a number of statistical methods have been developed and applied to habitat suitability modelling for rare and threatened species. Data available on these species are typically limited. Therefore, developing these models from these data can be problematic and may produce prediction biases. To address these problems there are three aims of this thesis. The _rst aim is to develop and implement frequentist and Bayesian statistical modelling approaches for these types of data. The second aim is develop and implement expert elicitation methods. The third aim is to apply these novel approaches to Australian rare and threatened species case studies with the intention of habitat suitability modelling. The _rst aim is ful_lled by investigating two innovative approaches for habitat suitability modelling and sensitivity analysis of the second approach to priors. The _rst approach is a new multilevel framework developed to model the species distribution at multiple scales and identify excess zeros (absences outside the species range). Applying a statistical modelling approach to the identi_cation of excess zeros has not previously been conducted. The second approach is an extension and application of Bayesian classi_cation trees to modelling the habitat suitability of a threatened species. This is the _rst `real' application of this approach in ecology. Lastly, sensitivity analysis of the priors in Bayesian classi_cation trees are examined for a real case study. Previously, sensitivity analysis of this approach to priors has not been examined. To address the second aim, expert elicitation methods are developed, extended and compared in this thesis. In particular, one elicitation approach is extended from previous research, there is a comparison of three elicitation methods, and one new elicitation approach is proposed. These approaches are illustrated for habitat suitability modelling of a rare species and the opinions of one or two experts are elicited. The _rst approach utilises a simple questionnaire, in which expert opinion is elicited on whether increasing values of a covariate either increases, decreases or does not substantively impact on a response. This approach is extended to express this information as a mixture of three normally distributed prior distributions, which are then combined with available presence/absence data in a logistic regression. This is one of the _rst elicitation approaches within the habitat suitability modelling literature that is appropriate for experts with limited statistical knowledge and can be used to elicit information from single or multiple experts. Three relatively new approaches to eliciting expert knowledge in a form suitable for Bayesian logistic regression are compared, one of which is the questionnaire approach. Included in this comparison of three elicitation methods are a summary of the advantages and disadvantages of these three methods, the results from elicitations and comparison of the prior and posterior distributions. An expert elicitation approach is developed for classi_cation trees, in which the size and structure of the tree is elicited. There have been numerous elicitation approaches proposed for logistic regression, however no approaches have been suggested for classi_cation trees. The last aim of this thesis is addressed in all chapters, since the statistical approaches proposed and extended in this thesis have been applied to real case studies. Two case studies have been examined in this thesis. The _rst is the rare native Australian thistle (Stemmacantha australis), in which the dataset contains a large number of absences distributed over the majority of Queensland, and a small number of presence sites that are only within South-East Queensland. This case study motivated the multilevel modelling framework. The second case study is the threatened Australian brush-tailed rock-wallaby (Petrogale penicillata). The application and sensitivity analysis of Bayesian classi_cation trees, and all expert elicitation approaches investigated in this thesis are applied to this case study. This work has several implications for conservation and management of rare and threatened species. Novel statistical approaches addressing the _rst aim provide extensions to currently existing methods, or propose a new approach, for identi _cation of current and potential habitat. We demonstrate that better model predictions can be achieved using each method, compared to standard techniques. Elicitation approaches addressing the second aim ensure expert knowledge in various forms can be harnessed for habitat modelling, a particular bene_t for rare and threatened species which typically have limited data. Throughout, innovations in statistical methodology are both motivated and illustrated via habitat modelling for two rare and threatened species: the native thistle Stemmacantha australis and the brush-tailed rock wallaby Petrogale penicillata.

Many plant species are closely related to river biotopes or to biotopes influenced by rivers. River systems create important linear corridors in ecosystems and directly or non-directly influence spatial spread of species in these environments. This offer many questions about species spread in this system. We can answer these questions by using molecular methods. Using 10 microsatellite (SSRs) primers, 202 individuals of Phragmites australis from 60 populations were analysed. Those analyses allowed reveal kinship of individuals, obtain information about spatial spread of populations and about spreading of common reed. Phragmites australis creates both - monoclonal and polyclonal - populations. Dependence of rate of clonality on environment was revealed. Populations from river banks are more monoclonal, populations from pond shores are more polyclonal. Populations are isolated. The highest percentage of variability was explained on among-population level. This is common for anemochoric species. Communication between populations is present, more on shorter distances. Evidence for vegetative spread was found on short distance. Generative spread is much more common. Long-distance spreading is mediated by generative diaspores - seeds. This spreading includes within-river spread, among-river spread and spreading...