Dr Yolanda van Heezik
Email yolanda.vanheezik@otago.ac.nz
Phone 64-3-479-4107
Teaching
- MARI 302 Biology and Behaviour of Marine Vertebrates
- ZOOL 417 Harvest Management
- WILM 402 Techniques of Wildlife Management
- WILM 403 Practice of Wildlife Management
Research Interests
- Urban biodiversity
- Impacts of cats and other predators on urban wildlife
- Viability of urban wildlife populations
- Spatial ecology of mammalian predators
- Restoration of threatened species
- Breeding ecology of seabirds
Current Projects
- Movements and habitat use of urban possums using GPS technology
- Spatial distribution and determinants of skink distribution within an urban area
- Householder knowledge and attitudes towards biodiversity in their own gardens
- Densities of rats in urban Dunedin
- Densities of native an exotic birds across the urban gradient
Current and Recent Postgraduate Students
- Ed Waite, PhD "Specimen trees as ecological keystone structures in the urban landscape".
- Andrew McCulloch, MSc, "Estimation of rat abundance in an urban area using mark/recapture and micro-satellite analysis".
- Liz Metsers, MSc, "Movement behaviour and habitat use of domestic cats in relation to threatened native lizard habitat."
- Amy Adams, PhD "Spatial ecology, resource use and population structure of the common brushtail possum across an urban-rural gradient".
- Sandra Soeder, MSc, "Resource selection in kaka.
- Aviva Stein, MSc, "Lifetime reproductive success of Yellow-eyed penguins on the Otago Peninsula".
- Mel Young, MSc, "Marine-based stochasticity and the impact upon Yellow-eyed penguins on mainland New Zealand; does it drive annual regional productivity?
- Scott Fleming, MSc, "Evaluating stable isotope analysis as a tool in determining dietary shifts in little penguins".
- Charlotte Seifert, MSc, "Temporal and spatial habitat use of introduced brushtail possums in urban NZ".