Samples of berried female Jasus edwardsii (Hutton) were taken from rock lobster pots fished by commercial fishermen from eight areas around New Zealand, and the number of eggs counted using an electronic egg counter. The size of females ranged from 74 to 157 mm carapace length (CL) and fecundity from 37 499 to 407 032 eggs per female. The fecundity-size relationship was described by a power function of the form fecundity (f ) = a CL b . There were no significant differences between most samples, which resulted in a considerable degree of overlap in the fecundity-size relationship between areas. The maximum fecundity observed in this study is considerably less than the maximum observed in two previous studies of J. edwardsii. Egg loss at Kaikoura between the early and middle stages of the egg-bearing period was 20%. The fecundity of J. edwardsii is generally less than the fecundity of three other closely related Jasus species (J. lalandii, J. novaehollandiae, and J. frontalis) at similar sizes.

Six Paeonia lactiflora cultivare ('Coral Sunset', 'Festiva Maxima', 'Maestro', 'Nick Shaylor', 'Pink Hawaiian Coral', 'Sarah Bernhardt') were studied to determine whether postharvest storage temperatures (0-7°C) impacted on postharvest quality of flowers that had been harvested at different bud maturities. The flowers of each of the cultivare differed in their response to postharvest storage temperatures for particular bud harvest maturities. The development of harvested buds in cold storage was affected by both bud maturity at harvest and the temperature that the buds were stored after harvest. The open vase-life of flowers was unaffected by postharvest storage temperatures (0-7°C) but bud maturity at harvest did impact on the open vase-life of one cultivar ('Festiva Maxima'). For 'Festiva Maxima', buds harvested at less mature stages had a greater open vase-life than those harvested at more mature stages. The current research shows that maintaining low postharvest storage temperatures (<8°C) for short-term storage of P. lactiflora cultivare slows bud development, thereby influencing flower maturity at export destinations while not impacting on the open vase-life of the cut flowers.

A total of 3417 rock lobsters (Jasus edwardsii) were tagged and released during five separate tagging periods between February 1979 and September 1982, along the Fiordland coast between Thompson and Caswell Sound, New Zealand. Up to 31 May 1987, 1580 individual rock lobsters (46% of those tagged) had been returned, with 1470 having information on the location of recapture. 145 (10%) of the latter had moved at least 5 km from the tagging site. The longest minimum straight-line sea distance moved by any one animal was 161 km. The largest proportions of rock lobsters that moved and those that moved the longest distances were immature females and small males. The movements of these two sex/maturity stages showed a definite directionality, with most recaptures moving north. Smaller proportions of mature females moved, and they showed no directionality. The multiple recaptures of some mature females during and immediately after the egg-bearing season suggested that homing of some animals may have occurred.

No abstract