Community-based conservation volunteering : motivations, barriers, and strategies for volunteer recruitment and retention to optimise conservation outcomes : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Natural Resource Management at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand

Community-based conservation involves members of the public participating in a wide range of natural resource management activities. It empowers people to contribute to taking care of the environment in their local area. Community-based conservation is growing in Aotearoa New Zealand, and around the world. Aotearoa New Zealand has approximately 940 community-based conservation groups. Collectively, these groups make an invaluable contribution to biodiversity conservation in Aotearoa New Zealand. Community-based conservation in Aotearoa New Zealand is extremely important as there is a need for ongoing conservation initiatives due to significant habitat loss and the devastating impact of introduced mammalian predators However, there is little research investigating what motivates individuals to participate in these groups and the factors that may limit their ability to get involved and stay involved. Using the Manawatū region of Aotearoa New Zealand as a study site, this research explores the factors that influence public participation in community-based conservation. It investigates what motivates participation; what volunteers gain from participation; what prevents or stops participation; and what can be done to encourage more participation in community-based conservation. Following a systematic literature review, three research methods were used: an online investigation of local community-based conservation groups, in depth semi-structured interviews with 21 key stakeholders, and an online questionnaire completed by 101 local community-based conservation volunteers. The questionnaire covered volunteering details, demographic characteristics of volunteers, motivations, commitment, satisfaction, barriers to volunteering, environmental monitoring and pro-environmental behaviours. The research showed that community-based conservation volunteers in the Manawatū tended to be older, highly educated and either retired or in less than full time employment. The most important initial motivation factors were found to be “to care for the environment” followed by “to help the local community”, “as a connection to nature” and “to be outside, or amongst nature”. “To advance my career” was the least important motivation factor followed by “for stress relief or escape” and “to get exercise”. The research showed that the most successful form of recruitment was through social interactions with volunteers and word of mouth. The main barriers to participation were time taken, travelling distance and health issues. Long-term motivations were similar to initial motivations with “to care for the environment” and “to help the local community” identified as the most important, in both instances. “To learn new skills, or knowledge” is the only motivational factor that decreased in importance between initial and long-term motivations. Some motivation factors increased substantially in importance including “to help the local community”, “to socialize with others” and “for stress relief or escape”. A high proportion of volunteers also had a strong connection to the group or place where they volunteered and to nature in general. Relationships between volunteers, non-government organisations and government agencies also impacted the success of local groups, and community-based environmental monitoring was key to obtaining funding and documenting success. The findings of this study will be useful in informing strategies for the recruitment and retention of volunteers and to improve the success of local community-based conservation in a range of settings. Such strategies might include managers of community-based conservation groups explicitly taking motivation factors into account within project and programme design and implementation, allowing more time for socialisation between volunteers, providing volunteers with ongoing training, education and recognition, providing a range of flexible volunteering opportunities targeting different types of volunteers, building positive relationships with other groups, relevant government agencies, local businesses and iwi, and working more collaboratively with other community-based conservation groups to achieve shared objectives

The impact of experimental warming on bumblebees: Higher temperatures induce behavioral changes in Bombus terrestris queens

Bumblebees (Bombus terrestris) are important pollinators in most temperate and boreal ecosystems, but these regions are increasingly affected by heatwaves that are a symptom of anthropogenic climate change. Bumblebee queens may be particularly vulnerable to elevated temperatures during their solitary period following overwintering. Using an experimental system with numerous replicates, we investigated the oviposition behavior of overwintered spring queens, the resulting colony characteristics, and the mating behavior of newly emerged fall queens at three different temperatures: optimal (27 °C; C27), moderately high (32 °C; C32), and high (35 °C; C35). Spring queens exposed to higher temperatures exhibited unusual behavior, with spring queens in the C35 group more frequently digging up and destroying egg cells, ultimately leading to colony failure. Compared to C27, spring queens in the C32 treatment displayed more frequent ovipo sition, a higher colony formation rate, a higher number of offspring per colony, a shorter colony development period, and lower body sizes in their adult offspring. These results indicate that elevated temperatures lead to behavioral changes in spring queens and affect the characteristics of resulting colonies. Fall queens exhibited mating avoidance behavior at higher temperatures, resulting in a lower mating rate. Our results demonstrate that bumblebee queens respond to thermal condi tions that can lead to colony failure when thermal limits are exceeded. In nature, behavioral changes induced in bumblebee queens exposed to persistent heatwaves during the solitary period may be seriously deleterious to bumblebee populations in many regions.fals

SME employee perceptions about future work–life flexibility: findings from New Zealand

Employees of New Zealand small and medium enterprises (SMEs) desire more work–life flexibility and are seeking change in the workplace. Applying institutional theory and the related concept of institutional work as our theoretical frame, we explored employee perceptions about working arrangements and found a substantial desire for change. Specifically, 71% of 619 employees surveyed wanted more work–life flexibility, with the research highlighting three constructs that contribute to employee perceptions about their work and nonwork interface: working pattern control, job flexibility, and a sense of being respected. The findings are significant and novel as they illustrate a renewed desire on the part of employees to change work arrangement practices in response to recent lived experiences. Given these demands for flexibility are now being driven from an employee rather than employer perspective, this could lead to the development of new normative expectations that would place pressure on SMEs to change work arrangements in response to employees’ active agency. In current high-employment environments, employee flexibility is likely to facilitate a recruitment and retention advantage, and each of the identified constructs will potentially play a fundamental major role in employee–employer relationships.fals

Stable Tree Labelling for Accelerating Distance Queries on Dynamic Road Networks

Finding the shortest-path distance between two arbitrary vertices is an important problem in road networks. Due to real-time traffic conditions, road networks undergo dynamic changes all the time. Current state-of-the-art methods incrementally maintain a distance labelling based on a hierarchy among vertices to support efficient distance computation. However, their labelling sizes are often large and cannot be efficiently maintained. To combat these issues, we present a simple yet efficient labelling method, namely Stable Tree Labelling (STL), for answering distance queries on dynamic road networks. We observe that the properties of an underlying hierarchy play an important role in improving and balancing query and update performance. Thus, we introduce the notion of stable tree hierarchy which lays the ground for developing efficient maintenance algorithms on dynamic road networks. Based on stable tree hierarchy, STL can be efficiently constructed as a 2-hop labelling. A crucial ingredient of STL is to only store distances within subgraphs in labels, rather than distances in the entire graph, which restricts the labels affected by dynamic changes. We further develop two efficient maintenance algorithms upon STL: Label Search algorithm and Pareto Search algorithm. Label Search algorithm identifies affected ancestors in a stable tree hierarchy and performs efficient searches to update labels from those ancestors. Pareto Search algorithm explores the interaction between search spaces of different ancestors, and combines searches from multiple ancestors into only two searches for each update, eliminating duplicate graph traversals. The experiments show that our algorithms significantly outperform state-of-the-art dynamic methods in maintaining the labelling and query processing, while requiring an order of magnitude less space.fals

Students' experiences of distress during work-integrated learning

While work-integrated learning (WIL) is praised as effective for providing opportunities for knowledge, skills, and value development in authentic workplaces, student experiences may not always be positive. In New Zealand, the Education (Pastoral Care of Tertiary and International Students) Code of Practice [Pastoral Care Code of Practice] (2021) requires tertiary providers ensure the wellbeing and safety of their learners. This article analyses survey data on social work students’ experiences of distress during WIL. Results suggest students experienced different distresses, but financial hardship and feeling unsupported on placement were particularly impactful. Material impacts from these and other stressors included reduced confidence, anxiety, adverse physical or mental health, and sleep disruption. The participants utilised personal strategies to manage distress and had mixed experiences of receiving information and support from their tertiary institution. To mitigate distressing experiences recommendations to improve current systems and processes as well as individual students’ experiences will be outlined.fals

An Increase in Male Recombination Rate With Age in Dairy Cattle Is Heritable and Polygenic

Meiotic recombination is an essential process for shuffling genetic diversity in sexually reproducing organisms, can vary within and between individuals in response to intrinsic and extrinsic factors, and can be heritable. Interestingly, recombination rate has been found to vary with age in some species, but to date, there have been no assessments of the heritability and genetic architecture of this age effect. Here, we leverage a large pedigree of SNP chip-genotyped Aotearoa New Zealand Holstein-Friesian and Jersey dairy cattle to test for an effect of age on male recombination rate, the heritability of recombination rate and of any such age effect on recombination, and the genetic architecture underlying these two phenotypes. We found a significant, albeit small, increase in the average number of male autosomal recombinations with age. Consistent with previous studies, we found moderate heritability (h2 ≈ 0.15) of sire recombination rate and detected association with several regions on chromosome 10 encompassing genes such as REC8, REC114, RNF212B and NEK9. Further, we found novel evidence of some heritability (h2 ≈ 0.05) in the rate of change in recombination with age in sires. Variation in the rate of change with age is likely also polygenic, but there is a region on chromosome 1 that is weakly associated with the rate of change. It is unclear whether the heritability of age-related recombination rate change is widespread across species, and we encourage studies in other taxa to assess its prevalence and evolutionary significance.fals

A Simulation-Based Study of Classroom IAQ and Thermal Comfort Performance Across New Zealand’s Six Climate Zones: The Avalon Typology

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Functional Significance of Probiotic Bacterial Interactions with Milk Fat Globules in a Human Host

Dairy products often serve as matrices for delivering probiotic bacteria to humans through the diet; however, little is known about the impact of milk fat globules on the growth and survival of probiotic microorganisms. This review discusses current knowledge on the structure and functionality of the milk fat globule membrane (MFGM) and the structural components contributing to the mechanisms of interactions with probiotic bacteria. We analyzed studies published between 2001 and 2025 with reference to earlier foundational research on probiotics and MFGM structure to explore the functional significance of MFGM–probiotic interactions. Recent research indicates that the effects of MFGM interaction with bacteria are species-specific and may influence probiotic activity in the host, including enhancing probiotic viability during intestinal transit and modulating probiotic colonization. In general, research findings suggest that the MFGM holds potential for use as a probiotic carrier to the gut with beneficial health consequences.fals

What is news? : an exploration of news consumption in Aotearoa New Zealand comparing older and younger audiences using a uses and gratifications lens : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctorate of Philosophy in Communication at Massey University, Wellington, New Zealand

Technological and societal developments, including digital news, use of mobile devices, and the shared connections of social media, have impacted how and why audiences consume news. This study examined news consumption in Aotearoa New Zealand using a uses and gratifications lens, with a focus on the habits of those aged under 26 years of age and those over 26 years of age. The study produced three articles based on insights from focus groups to examine what audiences use for news, what they think is news, and what they do as a result of news. The articles indicated differences in habits between the two age cohorts, particularly in the use of social media and new media forms. Together, the articles offer three findings towards the overall research question of understanding the factors affecting news consumption and the divergence in news consumption habits between older and younger audiences. Uses and gratifications theory is still relevant for understanding news choices, as needs drive media behaviours and desired gratifications. Although news values are a useful categorisation of the characteristics of news that resonate with audiences, they need to be re-examined in the current media environment. Finally, veracity is proposed as an emerging news value as audiences have more news choice, and it is a key factor determining what news audiences consume and why. This study proposes a new theoretical model for news consumption that includes uses and gratifications theory and news values framework to understand the factors involved in news consumption. This model is explored as a case study using audiences’ responses to the media coverage of the death of Queen Elizabeth II in September 2022

Integrating the Cross-Border Industrial Chain: An Exploring of Key Configuration of Agricultural Investment in Lancang-Mekong River Region

The demand for agriculture finance and investment for sustainable agriculture development has long been a concern for many years. However, the insufficient integration of the agricultural technology innovation chain and technology transfer impedes the enhancement of collaborative innovation capability in evolving total factor productivity. This paper utilizes Chinese agricultural companies’ investment in the Lancang-Mekong River region as an example to scrutinize key configuration factors fostering the integration of technical collaboration within agricultural industry chains. The results indicated that Chinese agricultural companies can be classified into two categories based on their approach to technical collaboration. The first category is strength-oriented, and companies in this category have the capability to transform technological investments, yielding relatively high returns. They also have optimistic expectations regarding favorable policies in the host country. This category accounts for about one-third of the companies studied. The second category is potential-oriented, in which firms possess the potential for technological investment transformation, with lower investment returns. They require effective contextual management and tax incentives from the host country to thrive. The impact of foreign direct investment decision-making diminishes, introducing new imperatives for the current host country’s market environment and the management of FDI enterprises in the host country. This study makes contributions to advance the exploration of technology’s impact on agricultural companies’ cross-border investment, stipulating new requirements for the transformative development of regional foreign direct investment, particularly for private enterprises.fals