Announcing the recipient of the David Given Threatened Plant Scholarship 2021
Debra Wotton is the successful recipient of the 2021 scholarship with her project focused on genetic diversity of Veronica armstrongii. The late David Given was a New Zealand plant systematist and a pioneering plant conservationist as well as a great friend and mentor to many in the Aotearoa plant world. David was also heavily involved with the NZPCN, as well as many other organisations. To honour his legacy the David Given Threatened Plant Scholarship (DGTPS) was established in 2009 to fund research that assists the protection and recovery of New Zealand’s threatened plant species and their communities.
The calibre of the 2021 applications was high and the projects spanned a variety of research methods and species, the panel assessing the applications thanks and commends all applicants for their efforts. We are very pleased to announce that Debra Wotton is the successful recipient of the 2021 scholarship with her project focused on genetic diversity of Veronica armstrongii. Debra, of Moa’s Ark Research, will be working closely with Ben Gibbons, Dave Kelly and Pieter Pelser – all of the University of Canterbury. The DGTPS committee considered the project to be a very tidy example of how to approach a common conservation challenge for which we have little data, we also appreciated both the collaborative approach and that the project is building on previous work. A summary of the planned research will appear in the September issue of Trilepidea, and the results of Debra and her team’s work will appear in a future issue.
My thanks also to other members of the DGTPS 2021 panel - John Barkla, Rowan Hindmarsh-Walls and Shannel Courtney – for volunteering their time and being so passionate about threatened plant research in New Zealand.
- Alex Fergus
Posted: 22/09/2021