Detection Techniques and Habitat Suitability for New Zealand Lizards during Urban Development

Of all human-induced land changes, urbanisation poses the largest adverse threat to lizard species biodiversity. In New Zealand, housing and associated infrastructure projects can overlap with lizard habitat. However, there are a lack of studies on New Zealand lizard species within urban environments, in particular for species detection and monitoring before, during and after urban developments. This means that lizards may be poorly accounted for during the consenting and urban development process. In this thesis I explored the effects of urbanisation on lizards in Wellington, New Zealand. I compared lizard monitoring techniques (artificial cover objects, pitfall traps, tracking tunnels and citizen science) to test methods for lizard detection prior to urban developments, during mitigation translocations, and to opportunistically monitor an impacted development site as well as a site with translocated lizards. I found that less commonly applied techniques, such as citizen science and tracking tunnels, may be useful tools for detecting lizard presence before and after urban development. To build information on species detection, I explored habitat associations with northern grass skink (Oligosoma polychroma), comparing landscape-scale species distribution models and using a separate model to predict lizard catch rates against habitat variables. I found that land cover and latitude were the strongest predictors of northern grass skink prevalence, and that vegetation cover weakly correlates with predicted lizard catch. My findings add to available information for lizard detection and monitoring techniques in urban environments, as well as habitat associations and species distribution information of the northern grass skink. These results contribute to our understanding of lizards in urban areas which will aid in decision making for human-induced land changes.