Words and photo: Xuan Cheng This research has been published in the Journal of Economic Entomology The redlegged earth mite, Halotydeus destructor (Tucker) (Trombidiformes: Penthaleidae) is a polyphagous economic pest in Australia, attacking a broad range of host plants in broadacre farming systems1. Although applications of pesticides are currently the main method in managing earth […]
Words: Samantha Ward As the name suggests, at the Pest & Environmental Adaptation Research Group we are interested in pest species and enjoy investigating novel approaches to sustainably control such organisms. I began my PhD at PEARG in 2016 studying parasitoid wasps; A group of wasps that lay their eggs inside or onto other arthropods. […]
Editors note: This article is direct from our internal research diary Words: Nancy M. Endersby-Harshman The purpose of this article is to recommend very careful reading and analysis of the literature relating to sodium channel mutations in Aedes aegypti and equal care in writing about them. I have uncovered some confusion in the mosquito literature […]
Tune in to 3RRR 102.7 FM between 7-8 this evening to hear Ary in discussion about all things insect ecology. If you miss it or live too far from Melbourne to tune in, you can stream the show live at rrr.org.au or after it airs at https://www.rrr.org.au/program/greening-the-apocalypse/ 3RRR is a Melbourne based community radio station, […]
Off the back of a review Ary wrote last year in Current Opinion in Insect Science, a less technical and more digestible summary is now available (sans pay-wall) at Science Trends. A Quote from the Science Trends article to grab your interest: Evolutionary changes often occur when pest species invade new areas where they have […]
Words: Tom Schmidt Photos: Tom Schmidt and Perran Ross At PEARG, we have a great interest in environmental pests and how to deal with them. One of these pests is the mosquito Aedes aegypti, which causes catastrophic damage throughout the world’s tropical zone. Aedes aegypti spreads viruses such as dengue, Zika and chikungunya, and is […]
Words: Perran Ross Cover photo: Andrew Weeks Wolbachia are perhaps the most prevalent bacterial symbionts on earth. Of the millions of insect species, Wolbachia are estimated to infect up to half of them. These bacteria are renowned for the effects they exert on their hosts, which can often be quite dramatic. Some Wolbachia strains are […]
Words and images: Perran Ross Cover photo: Jason Axford Dengue is a major global health issue. It infects millions of people every year and can cause debilitating illness, inflicting joint pain, rash and fever. Without any effective vaccine, the best way to prevent dengue is to target the mosquitoes that transmit it. Dengue is spread […]
Nancy, Andrew and Ary have a fresh review article in CSIRO’s ‘Microbiology Australia’ journal. Below is the abstract, for the full text please follow this link. Mosquito-borne arboviruses are increasing in incidence around the world. Australia enjoys some protection from pests and diseases afforded by its geographic isolation coupled with strict biosecurity control at its […]
Written by Oliver Stuart, Image credit: Ryan Hodnett [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], from Wikimedia Commons There are a lot of different insects; this cannot be overstated. Of the roughly 2 million animal species (that we know of), insects make up well over half. This mega-diversity has been a source of delight for biologists for centuries, […]
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