Current Major Projects
Below, you'll find a description of the main projects we are currently working on; please see here for a list of individual projects.
what are the key predictors of invasion success?
Our system of differentially invasive blowflies
Species are on the move globally, but how do they survive in new environments when they get there? What are the key predictors of invasion success? These are hard questions, hampered by a lack of appropriate model systems and an inability to know when and why introductions fail or succeed. We hypothesise that more invasive species/populations have, or rapidly evolve, a greater extent of genomic and phenotypic innovations that enable their success in new environments. To test this hypothesis, our Marsden-funded project will unite experimental evolution with ecological, genomic, and modelling approaches in a system of endemic and differentially invasive blowflies to determine what it takes to be a successful invader.
Controlling damaging invasive pests by learning from successful biocontrol
Source - Simon Hinkley, Ken Walker Museums Victoria
New Zealand's primary production and conservation estates are threatened by invasive species. Biocontrol can be an effective, pesticide-free, non-GMO method of controlling damaging invasive pests, but new biocontrol agents are often ineffective. Thus, we need to be able to better predict when they will work well before we release new them to be sure that we are not introducing new damaging species. In this project, we are leveraging a remarkable 35-year experiment on a parasitoid wasp biocontrol agent (to target the Argentine stem weevil - pictured, left) to identify genomic and genetic factors associated with biocontrol success and failure. We will also use this information to predict the effectiveness of biocontrol agents that are slated for release in New Zealand, thus improving biocontrol systems already present, reducing uncertainty around biocontrol systems being proposed, and ensuring that effective methods are available to control future pests without increasing pesticide use.
This project is funded by MBIE (Smart Ideas programme).