Janet Wilmshurst

{{Short description|New Zealand palaeoecologist}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=October 2021}}

{{Use New Zealand English|date=September 2021}}

{{Infobox scientist

| name = Janet Wilmshurst

| honorific_suffix = {{Post-nominals|country=NZL|FRSNZ|size=100%}}

| image = Janet Wilmshurst.jpg

| alt =

| caption = Wilmshurst in 2019 at the 25th birthday celebrations of the Marsden Fund

| birth_date = {{Birth year and age|1966}}

| birth_place = Andover, Hampshire, England

| fields = Paleoecology

| workplaces = Manaaki Whenua – Landcare Research

| alma_mater = University of Canterbury

| thesis_title = A 2000 year history of vegetation and landscape change in Hawke's Bay, North Island, New Zealand

| thesis_url = https://ir.canterbury.ac.nz/handle/10092/4790

| thesis_year = 1995

| doctoral_advisors = Vida Stout
Matt McGlone

}}

Janet Mary Wilmshurst {{Post-nominals|country=NZL|FRSNZ}} (born 1966) is a New Zealand palaeoecologist who works on reconstructing the ecological past. Wilmshurst has been a Fellow of the Royal Society Te Apārangi since 2015. She was president of the New Zealand Ecological Society, and currently works as principal scientist in long-term ecology at Manaaki Whenua Landcare Research focusing on recent fossil records to reconstruct and trace past ecosystem changes in response to natural disturbance.

Education

Born in Andover, Hampshire, England, in 1966,{{cite book |url=https://search.ancestry.com.au/cgi-bin/sse.dll?dbid=8782&h=88765066&indiv=try |title=England & Wales, civil registration birth index, 1916–2007 |publisher=General Register Office, United Kingdom |volume=6b 238 |date=July 1966 |url-access=subscription}} Wilmshurst earned a BSc in environmental science at the University of Plymouth in 1988. She then completed a PhD at the University of Canterbury in 1995, with a thesis titled A 2000 year history of vegetation and landscape change in Hawke's Bay, North Island, New Zealand, supervised by Vida Stout and Matt McGlone.{{Cite web|title=Our people|url=https://www.landcareresearch.co.nz/about-us/our-people/|access-date=7 October 2021|website=Manaaki Whenua|language=en-US|archive-date=7 October 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211007085243/https://www.landcareresearch.co.nz/about-us/our-people/|url-status=live}}{{cite thesis |url=https://ir.canterbury.ac.nz/handle/10092/4790 |title=A 2000 year history of vegetation and landscape change in Hawke's Bay, North Island, New Zealand |first=Janet Mary |last=Wilmshurst |page=167 |type=PhD |publisher=University of Canterbury |year=1995 |access-date=11 October 2021 |archive-date=8 October 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211008032422/https://ir.canterbury.ac.nz/handle/10092/4790 |url-status=live }}

Research

Wilmshurst's research focuses on the use of different fossil types to explore ecological history. Her research has employed a variety of samples including fossilised dung, seeds, pollen, and charcoal.{{Cite web|title=View our current Fellows|url=https://www.royalsociety.org.nz/who-we-are/our-people/our-fellows/view-our-fellows/|access-date=7 October 2021|website=Royal Society Te Apārangi|archive-date=7 October 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211007100927/https://www.royalsociety.org.nz/who-we-are/our-people/our-fellows/view-our-fellows/|url-status=live}} She has worked on fire disturbance, human settlement and other impacts on past ecosystems.{{Cite web|title=Putting the dead to work: reconstructing NZ's ecological past {{!}} Nelson|url=https://www.royalsociety.org.nz/events/putting-the-dead-to-work-reconstructing-nzs-ecological-past-nelson/|access-date=7 October 2021|website=Royal Society Te Apārangi|archive-date=7 October 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211007095422/https://www.royalsociety.org.nz/events/putting-the-dead-to-work-reconstructing-nzs-ecological-past-nelson/|url-status=live}} Wilmshurst obtained a Marsden grant to work with Atholl Anderson, Thomas Higham and Trevor Worthy to explore Polynesian settlement throughout New Zealand and the Pacific using carbon dating of rat-gnawed seeds.{{Cite Q|Q28754348}} This work established that rats were widespread in New Zealand from circa 1280, but were not found before this date, and was at odds with earlier dates for rat arrival of up to 1000 years earlier, inferred from dating of rat bones.{{Cite web|title=New Zealand's Colonization 1000 Years Later Than Previously Thought?|url=https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080603162919.htm|access-date=24 October 2021|website=ScienceDaily|language=en}}

Wilmshurst used fossilised gizzards and moa coprolites to explore the diet of the extinct little bush moa in Fiordland National Park, in a study in which fossilised "poo paints a picture of the past".{{Cite web|last=Manaaki Whenua – Landcare Research|title=Fossilised moa poo paints a picture of the past|url=https://phys.org/news/2021-06-fossilised-moa-poo-picture.html|url-status=live|access-date=7 October 2021|website=phys.org|language=en|archive-date=7 October 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211007111437/https://phys.org/news/2021-06-fossilised-moa-poo-picture.html}} Wilmshurst and her team showed that little bush moa dispersed few seeds via dung, unlike other moa species.{{Cite web|title=Reconstructing the past from poop: now we know what the little bush moa ate|url=https://www.landcareresearch.co.nz/news/reconstructing-the-past-from-poop-now-we-know-what-the-little-bush-moa-ate/|access-date=7 October 2021|website=Manaaki Whenua|date=8 June 2021 |language=en-US|archive-date=7 October 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211007095423/https://www.landcareresearch.co.nz/news/reconstructing-the-past-from-poop-now-we-know-what-the-little-bush-moa-ate/|url-status=live}}

Wilmshurst was president of the New Zealand Ecological Society in 2001/2002, and currently works as principal scientist in long-term ecology at Manaaki Whenua Landcare Research.{{Cite web|last=|date=4 February 2010|title=Council Members|url=https://newzealandecology.org/about/council-members|url-status=live|access-date=7 October 2021|website=NZES|language=en|archive-date=7 October 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211007105306/https://newzealandecology.org/about/council-members}}{{Cite web|title=Putting the dead to work: reconstructing NZ's ecological past {{!}} Nelson|url=https://www.royalsociety.org.nz/events/putting-the-dead-to-work-reconstructing-nzs-ecological-past-nelson/|access-date=7 October 2021|website=Royal Society Te Apārangi|archive-date=7 October 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211007095422/https://www.royalsociety.org.nz/events/putting-the-dead-to-work-reconstructing-nzs-ecological-past-nelson/|url-status=live}}

Honours and awards

In 2013, Wilmshurst won the "Te Tohu Taiao Award for Ecological Excellence", conferred by the New Zealand Ecological Society.{{Cite web|last=|date=18 March 2010|title=Te Tohu Taiao – Award for Ecological Excellence|url=https://newzealandecology.org/awards-grants/te-tohu-taiao|url-status=live|access-date=7 October 2021|website=NZES|language=en|archive-date=7 October 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211007095430/https://newzealandecology.org/awards-grants/te-tohu-taiao}} Wilmshurst won the New Zealand Ecological Society's "Outstanding Publication on New Zealand Ecology" award in 2016 for her paper Use of pollen and ancient DNA as conservation baselines for offshore islands in New Zealand, published in Conservation Biology.{{Cite web|last=|date=20 June 2014|title=Outstanding Publication on New Zealand Ecology|url=https://newzealandecology.org/outstanding-publication-new-zealand-ecology|url-status=live|access-date=7 October 2021|website=NZES|language=en|archive-date=7 October 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211007105258/https://newzealandecology.org/outstanding-publication-new-zealand-ecology}}

Wilmshurst was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society Te Apārangi in 2015.

Selected publications

{{Scholia|id=Q30507273}}

  • {{Cite Q|Q28754348}}
  • {{Cite Q|Q57264410}}
  • {{Cite Q|Q29028441}}

References