Dr Nicola Nelson

• Position: Deputy Co-director ANZCoL
• Email: nicola.nelson@vuw.ac.nz
• Phone: +64 4 463 5435
• Fax: +64 4 463 5331
• Room: KK 621
• School of Biological Sciences
  Victoria University of Wellington
  P.O. Box 600
  Wellington, New Zealand.

Research Interests

My research currently focuses on how will reptiles with temperature-dependent sex determination (TSD) will cope with global warming using tuatara (Sphenodon spp.) as a case study. Specifically, I am investigating how variation in environmental temperatures and nesting behaviour of females affects hatchling sex ratios, and modeling estimates of future hatchling and adult sex ratios in the context of temperature increases predicted for the next century to assess population viability.

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Current Research Projects

1. How will reptiles with temperature-dependent sex determination (TSD) cope with global warming?

Using tuatara as a case study, I am investigating nesting behaviour, nest variability and hatchling sex ratios to estimate future sex ratios of tuatara populations. Sex ratios are an important population parameter affecting the likelihood of persistence. Outcomes of this research will be relevant to other reptiles with temperature-dependent sex determination, especially those that are confined geographically, for example on islands.

2. How do mate choice, mating systems and disease affect fitness of reptiles?

I have two PhD students investigating the following questions to determine their influence on tuatara fitness:

1. How are territories arranged spatially, and is there any seasonality to territory defence?
2. Mate choice – Who is mating with who, and why?
3. Paternity – Does multiple paternity exist? If so, which males are fertilising the eggs?
4. Relatedness – Do animals associate or mate with less related individuals than would be expected by chance?
5. Parasite lifecycle and transmission – How do the parasites of tuatara develop and reproduce? How are parasites transmitted to and between tuatara?
6. Patterns of infection – How does parasite load and prevalence vary temporally, spatially and in relationship with host size, sex, MHC variation?
7. Social structure and parasite transmission – How does the social structure of tuatara populations influence transmission of parasites?

3. Testing conservation techniques for reptiles

Juvenile reptiles around the world are reared in captivity under the premise that more of them will survive through their vulnerable first few years, and that they will be larger and better able to survive upon release in nature. In many cases, conservation programmes for endangered species rely on captive reared (or head-started) juveniles. New populations of tuatara (Sphenodon spp.) are founded on head-started juveniles. This project will investigate the performance of head-started tuatara once they are translocated into natural habitat. 

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Current Student Projects

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Content Last Modified: Friday, 30th June 2006.

November 2009

Master of
Conservation Biology:
New enrolments for the MConBio are now welcome.
More info about the masters program can be found here.

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