After 2015: students please add your observations to our 2015 and later project instead.

Each year, Lincoln University's second year biological diversity class goes on a three-day "Biodiversity Coast to Coast." We travel to and from Lincoln, across the Canterbury Plains, across the Southern Alps via Arthur's Pass, and across the West Coast through Moana to Punakaiki. The tour takes us through a wide range of South Island habitats and environmental conditions.

We stop at a variety of sites, including McHugh's Plantation in Darfield, Lord's Bush and Kowai Bush near Springfield, the Broken River skifield entrance to Craigieburn Forest Park, Greyney's Shelter, Dobson Nature Trail, and Kelly's Creek, all in Arthur's Pass National Park, the Rakaitane walk at Lake Brunner, Deep Creek near Moana, Truman's Track and Nikau Scenic Reserve at Punakaiki.

The class, in groups, do five minute bird counts, freshwater invertebrate stream kick sampling, and 10 m by 10 m tree and shrub plots in which we look at the changes in woody plant diversity and leaf morphology with elevation and rainfall.

In this group we bring together all of our observations from this trip. less ↑