The peat contains well-preserved pollen grains and plant remains dating back 14,000 years, making the site an important palaeoclimatic record for New Zealand and the south pacific.

[3] Moanatuatua is one of the only three known sites to contain the rare rush-like plant Sporadanthus ferrugineus [4] and the endemic moth Houdinia flexilissima known as 'Fred the thread', claimed to be the thinnest caterpillar in the world.

[6] The drain was commented on by the geologist Laurence Cussen in 1893 as the outflow had recently eroded a gully 70 ft deep where it flowed into the Waikato river.

In 1946 the Rukuhia Soil Fertility Research Station was set up with the main objective of carrying out practical investigations into farming the surrounding peatland, however some limited research was also performed on the natural peat ecosystem including chemical[15] and nutrient analysis prior to water table lowering.

Since 2010 research at Moanatuatua bog has been focused on the effect of lower water tables on plants, nutrient cycling, carbon storage[16] and palaeoclimatic reconstructions.