 Welcome to PĀNUI, the newsletter of Bioprotection Aotearoa.
We came into existence on July 1, and are now starting our journey of research and training. This newsletter's name describes our intention – to provide news about our work and research.
Our first news is that we are recruiting. We are actively seeking scientists to fill postdoctoral and postgraduate positions. If you are an early career researcher, or are contemplating postgraduate study, follow our LinkedIn page to make sure you see the positions as they become available. We currently have one postdoc and four postgraduate roles and will be adding more over the next weeks and months.
In this newsletter, we acknowledge our whakapapa, detailing the science and achievements of our predecessor, the Bio-Protection Research Centre. This is the science we have developed from and are building on and expanding. We also introduce our structure, with research built around three pou, or pillars, that guide us to define, defend, and design healthy ecosystems. And we explain the meaning behind our logo.
We are excited about our research journey, and look forward to sharing it with you.
Travis Glare, Amanda Black, Co-directors, Bioprotection Aotearoa |
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Our whakapapa
The Bio-Protection Research Centre carried out ground-breaking research that advanced understanding of pest and weed control internationally. In the following stories, we look at the major achievements of the multi-year BPRC research projects.
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What makes a plant a pest?
Why do some introduced species become invasive weeds, while others don’t? This was the fundamental question the Bio-Protection Research Centre set out to answer in a project called “Contemporary evolution in weed invasion” (Project 1).
Over the course of our research, we found some answers. Read more...
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When biocontrol goes awry…
What meets the eye is not necessarily the whole story – as revealed by the Bio-Protection Research Centre’s research into the declining effectiveness of introduced biological control.
Argentine stem weevil is a major pest of ryegrass, the backbone of New Zealand’s pastures. Read more...
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Progress against pathogens
Plant pathogens pose an ongoing risk to agriculture and the conservation estate in New Zealand. In the past decade the country has experienced devastating epidemics caused by Pseudomonas syringae pv. actinidiae (Psa) on kiwifruit and Phytophthora agathidicida on kauri. . Read more...
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Discoveries go even further than we had hoped
New Zealand’s pastoral economy is based on a symbiotic relationship between a fungus, Epichloë festucae, and perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne). The grass gives the fungus a place to live, and the fungus in turn produces chemicals that stop insects from eating the grass. Read more...
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Answering biocontrol riddle
Why do some strains of two bacteria cause disease in grass grub, while others don’t?
This was a question we set out to answer in our project “Enhancing microbial-based biological control”. Read more...
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Relationships matter...
What role, if any, do the interactions between species play in determining the success of invasive exotic plants on New Zealand ecosystems?
The answer we found to this this question, using many research techniques, was surprising. Read more...
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Closing in on answers
How have land-use changes affected the growth and survival of Phytophthora agathidicida, the cause of kauri dieback?
Kauri (Agathis australis), one of New Zealand’s most iconic native trees, is culturally significant to Māori and functions as an ecological foundation species. Read more...
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What is Bioprotection Aotearoa?
Bioprotection Aotearoa is a new Centre of Research Excellence, built on the whakapapa of the Bio-Protection Research Centre. However, it is not a simple continuation – it is an evolution. Read more...
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What's in a brand?
Creating the new brand and logo for Bioprotection Aotearoa was a collaborative effort, involving many different people. Read more ...
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The following papers authored or co-authored by BPRC and Bioprotection Aotearoa researchers were published in the first half of 2021
Abiem, I., Dickie, I., Kenfack, D., Chapman, H., & Woods, K. (2021). Conspecific negative density dependence does not explain coexistence in a tropical Afromontane forest. Journal of Vegetation Science, 32(1). doi:10.1111/jvs.12990
Albornoz, F. E., Orchard, S., Standish, R. J., Dickie, I. A., Bending, G. D., Hilton, S., . . . Ryan, M. H. (2021). Evidence for Niche Differentiation in the Environmental Responses of Co-occurring Mucoromycotinian Fine Root Endophytes and Glomeromycotinian Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi. Microb Ecol, 81(4), 864-873. doi:10.1007/s00248-020-01628-0
Allen, W. J., Sapsford, S. J., & Dickie, I. A. (2021). Soil sample pooling generates no consistent inference bias: a meta-analysis of 71 plant-soil feedback experiments. New Phytol. doi:10.1111/nph.17455
Allen, W. J., Waller, L. P., Barratt, B. I. P., Dickie, I. A., & Tylianakis, J. M. (2021). Exotic plants accumulate and share herbivores yet dominate communities via rapid growth. Nat Commun, 12(1), 2696. doi:10.1038/s41467-021-23030-1
Ambler, J., Diallo, A. A., Dearden, P. K., Wilcox, P., Hudson, M., & Tiffin, N. (2021). Including Digital Sequence Data in the Nagoya Protocol Can Promote Data Sharing. Trends Biotechnol, 39(2), 116-125. doi:10.1016/j.tibtech.2020.06.009
Brandt, A. J., Bellingham, P. J., Duncan, R. P., Etherington, T. R., Fridley, J. D., Howell, C. J., . . . Peltzer, D. A. (2021). Naturalised plants transform the composition and function of the New Zealand flora. Biological Invasions, 23(2), 351-366. doi:10.1007/s10530-020-02393-4
Bufford, J. L., & Hulme, P. E. (2021). Increased adaptive phenotypic plasticity in the introduced range in alien weeds under drought and flooding. Biological Invasions. doi:10.1007/s10530-021-02532-5
Byers, A. K., Condron, L., O’Callaghan, M., Waipara, N., & Black, A. (2021). The response of soil microbial communities to the infection of kauri (Agathis australis) seedlings with Phytophthora agathidicida. Forest Pathology. doi:10.1111/efp.12708
Cairns, S. M., Wratten, S. D., Filipiak, M., Veronesi, E. R., Saville, D. J., & Shields, M. W. (2021). Ratios rather than concentrations of nutritionally important elements may shape honey bee preferences for ‘dirty water’. Ecological Entomology. doi:10.1111/een.13067
Dickie, I., Dickie, I. A., Sprague, R., Peltzer, D. A., Green, J., Orwin, K., & Sapsford, S. (2021). Beyond control: Applying ecological research to improve long-term outcomes of wilding conifer management. Authorea. doi:10.22541/au.162428605.59992740/v1
Fridley, J. D., Jo, I., Hulme, P. E., Duncan, R. P., & Oduor, A. (2021). A habitat‐based assessment of the role of competition in plant invasions. Journal of Ecology, 109(3), 1263-1274. doi:10.1111/1365-2745.13553
Glare, T. R., Scholte Op Reimer, Y., Cummings, N., Rivas-Franco, F., Nelson, T. L., & Zimmermann, G. (2021). Diversity of the insect pathogenic fungi in the genus Metarhizium in New Zealand. New Zealand Journal of Botany, 1-17. doi:10.1080/0028825x.2021.1890155
Gutierrez-Gines, M. J., Alizadeh, H., Alderton, E., Ambrose, V., Meister, A., Robinson, B. H., . . . Horswell, J. (2021). Phytoremediation of microbial contamination in soil by New Zealand native plants. Applied Soil Ecology, 167. doi:10.1016/j.apsoil.2021.104040
Hennessy, L. M., Popay, A. J., Glare, T. R., Finch, S. C., Cave, V. M., & Rostás, M. (2021). Olfactory responses of Argentine stem weevil to herbivory and endophyte-colonisation in perennial ryegrass. Journal of Pest Science. doi:10.1007/s10340-021-01375-2
Hulme, P. E. (2021). One Biosecurity: a unified concept to integrate human, animal, plant, and environmental health. Emerg Top Life Sci, 4(5), 539-549. doi:10.1042/ETLS20200067
Hulme, P. E. (2021). Invasion science in South Africa: The definitive collection. South African Journal of Science, 117(1/2). doi:10.17159/sajs.2021/8732
Hulme, P. E. (2021). Unwelcome exchange: International trade as a direct and indirect driver of biological invasions worldwide. One Earth, 4(5), 666-679. doi:10.1016/j.oneear.2021.04.015
Jaskula, R., Michalski, M., & Marris, J. W. M. (2021). First records of the Palaestes abruptus Sharp, 1899 and P. nicaraguae Sharp, 1899 (Coleoptera: Cucujidae) from South America, with a checklist of flat bark beetles from the continent. Biodivers Data J, 9, e62576. doi:10.3897/BDJ.9.e62576
Jayaraman, J., Chatterjee, A., Hunter, S., Chen, R., Stroud, E. A., Saei, H., . . . Brendolise, C. (2021). Rapid methodologies for assessing Pseudomonas syringae pv. actinidiae colonization and effector-mediated hypersensitive response in kiwifruit. Mol Plant Microbe Interact. doi:10.1094/MPMI-02-21-0043-R
Kaiser, M., Goldson, S., Buklijas, T., Gluckman, P., Allen, K., Bardsley, A., & Lam, M. E. (2021). Towards Post-Pandemic Sustainable and Ethical Food Systems. Food Ethics, 6(1), 4. doi:10.1007/s41055-020-00084-3
Kotula, H. J., Peralta, G., Frost, C. M., Todd, J. H., & Tylianakis, J. M. (2021). Predicting direct and indirect non-target impacts of biocontrol agents using machine-learning approaches. PLoS One, 16(6), e0252448. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0252448
Lacey, R. F., Sullivan-Hill, B. A., Deslippe, J. R., Keyzers, R. A., & Gerth, M. L. (2021). The Fatty Acid Methyl Ester (FAME) profile of Phytophthora agathidicida and its potential use as diagnostic tool. biorxiv doi:10.1101/2021.04.06.437983
Lukito, Y., Lee, K., Noorifar, N., Green, K. A., Winter, D. J., Ram, A., . . . Scott, B. (2021). Regulation of host-infection ability in the grass-symbiotic fungus Epichloë festucae by histone H3K9 and H3K36 methyltransferases. Environ Microbiol, 23(4), 2116-2131. doi:10.1111/1462-2920.15370
Malone, L. M., Birkholz, N., & Fineran, P. C. (2021). Conquering CRISPR: how phages overcome bacterial adaptive immunity. Curr Opin Biotechnol, 68, 30-36. doi:10.1016/j.copbio.2020.09.008
Mason, N. W. H., Burge, O., Price, R., Sprague, R., Dymond, J., Watt, M., . . . Peltzer, D. A. (2021). Integrating across knowledge systems to drive action on chronic biological invasions. Biological Invasions, 23(2), 407-432. doi:10.1007/s10530-020-02388-1
Meisrimler, C. N., Allan, C., Eccersall, S., & Morris, R. J. (2021). Interior design: how plant pathogens optimize their living conditions. New Phytol, 229(5), 2514-2524. doi:10.1111/nph.17024
Narciso, J., Ormskirk, M., Jones, S., Rolston, P., Moran-Diez, M. E., Hurst, M., . . . Glare, T. (2019). Using multiple insecticidal microbial agents against diamondback moth larvae - does it increase toxicity? New Zealand Journal of Agricultural Research, 64(2), 178-193. doi:10.1080/00288233.2019.1582074 |
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Ni, M., Hulme, P. E., & Ordonez, A. (2021). Botanic gardens play key roles in the regional distribution of first records of alien plants in China. Global Ecology and Biogeography, 30(8), 1572-1582. doi:10.1111/geb.13319
Nunes, C. A., Barlow, J., França, F., Berenguer, E., Solar, R. R. C., Louzada, J., . . . Sayer, E. J. (2021). Functional redundancy of Amazonian dung beetles confers community‐level resistance to primary forest disturbance. Biotropica. doi:10.1111/btp.12998
Oso, S., Fuchs, F., Ubermuth, C., Zander, L., Daunaraviciute, S., Remus, D. M., . . . Remus-Emsermann, M. N. P. (2021). Biosurfactants Produced by Phyllosphere-Colonizing Pseudomonads Impact Diesel Degradation but Not Colonization of Leaves of Gnotobiotic Arabidopsis thaliana. Appl Environ Microbiol, 87(9). doi:10.1128/AEM.00091-21
Parker, T. C., Thurston, A. M., Raundrup, K., Subke, J.-A., Wookey, P. A., & Hartley, I. P. (2021). Shrub expansion in the Arctic may induce large‐scale carbon losses due to changes in plant‐soil interactions. Plant and Soil, 463(1-2), 643-651. doi:10.1007/s11104-021-04919-8
Ricciardi, A., Iacarella, J. C., Aldridge, D. C., Blackburn, T. M., Carlton, J. T., Catford, J. A., . . . Wardle, D. A. (2021). Four priority areas to advance invasion science in the face of rapid environmental change. Environmental Reviews, 29(2), 119-141. doi:10.1139/er-2020-0088
Roura-Pascual, N., Leung, B., Rabitsch, W., Rutting, L., Vervoort, J., Bacher, S., . . . Essl, F. (2021). Alternative futures for global biological invasions. Sustainability Science. doi:10.1007/s11625-021-00963-6
Roy, J., Rineau, F., De Boeck, H. J., Nijs, I., Putz, T., Abiven, S., . . . Milcu, A. (2021). Ecotrons: Powerful and versatile ecosystem analysers for ecology, agronomy and environmental science. Glob Chang Biol, 27(7), 1387-1407. doi:10.1111/gcb.15471
Schweiger, R., Padilla-Arizmendi, F., Nogueira-Lopez, G., Rostas, M., Lawry, R., Brown, C., . . . Mendoza-Mendoza, A. (2021). Insights into Metabolic Changes Caused by the Trichoderma virens-Maize Root Interaction. Mol Plant Microbe Interact, 34(5), 524-537. doi:10.1094/MPMI-04-20-0081-R
Seebens, H., Bacher, S., Blackburn, T. M., Capinha, C., Dawson, W., Dullinger, S., . . . Essl, F. (2021). Projecting the continental accumulation of alien species through to 2050. Glob Chang Biol. doi:10.1111/gcb.15333
Seebens, H., Blackburn, T. M., Hulme, P. E., Kleunen, M., Liebhold, A. M., Orlova‐Bienkowskaja, M., . . . Hui, C. (2021). Around the world in 500 years: Inter‐regional spread of alien species over recent centuries. Global Ecology and Biogeography, 30(8), 1621-1632. doi:10.1111/geb.13325
Shain, D. H., Novis, P. M., Cridge, A. G., Zawierucha, K., Geneva, A. J., & Dearden, P. K. (2021). Five animal phyla in glacier ice reveal unprecedented biodiversity in New Zealand's Southern Alps. Sci Rep, 11(1), 3898. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-83256-3
Sitter, T. L., Vaughan, A. L., Schoof, M., Jackson, S. A., Glare, T. R., Cox, M. P., . . . Hurst, M. R. H. (2021). Evolution of virulence in a novel family of transmissible mega-plasmids. Environ Microbiol. doi:10.1111/1462-2920.15595
Smith, L. M., Jackson, S. A., Malone, L. M., Ussher, J. E., Gardner, P. P., & Fineran, P. C. (2021). The Rcs stress response inversely controls surface and CRISPR-Cas adaptive immunity to discriminate plasmids and phages. Nat Microbiol, 6(2), 162-172. doi:10.1038/s41564-020-00822-7
Somerville, G. J., Mathiassen, S. K., Melander, B., Bøjer, O. M., & Jørgensen, R. N. (2021). Analysing the number of images needed to create robust variable spray maps. Precision Agriculture. doi:10.1007/s11119-021-09800-3
Teixeira, C., Hampton, J., & Moot, D. (2021). Phenological development of subterranean clover cultivars under contrasting environments. Annals of Applied Biology. doi:10.1111/aab.12693
Teixeira, C. S. P., Hampton, J. G., & Moot, D. J. (2021). Time of sowing and cultivar effects on hardseededness and germination of subterranean clover seeds. New Zealand Journal of Agricultural Research, 1-25. doi:10.1080/00288233.2020.1861030
Touhami, D., Condron, L. M., & McDowell, R. W. (2021). Plant Species Rather than Elevated Atmospheric CO2 Impact Rhizosphere Properties and Phosphorus Fractions in a Phosphorus-Deficient Soil. Journal of Soil Science and Plant Nutrition, 21(1), 622-636. doi:10.1007/s42729-020-00388-7
Umar, A., Hampton, J. G., Kandula, D. R. W., Rolston, M. P., & Chng, S. (2021). The impacts of take-all, drought and their interaction on Bromus wildenowii seed yield and the alleviation of these stresses by Trichoderma atroviride. Biocontrol Science and Technology, 1-14. doi:10.1080/09583157.2021.1912293
Usher, B., Birkholz, N., Beck, I. N., Fagerlund, R. D., Jackson, S. A., Fineran, P. C., & Blower, T. R. (2021). Crystal structure of the anti-CRISPR repressor Aca2. J Struct Biol, 213(3), 107752. doi:10.1016/j.jsb.2021.107752
Veronesi, E. R., Olaniyan, O., London, H., Saville, D. J., & Wratten, S. D. (2021). Potential inter-guild interactions to enhance biological control of Bactericera cockerelli on tomatoes: a laboratory and cage study. BioControl, 66(3), 343-353. doi:10.1007/s10526-020-10074-3
Villamizar, L. F., Barrera, G., Hurst, M., & Glare, T. R. (2021). Characterization of a new strain of Metarhizium novozealandicum with potential to be developed as a biopesticide. Mycology, 1-18. doi:10.1080/21501203.2021.1935359
Wasa, A., Land, J. G., Gorthy, R., Krumdieck, S., Bishop, C., Godsoe, W., & Heinemann, J. A. (2021). Antimicrobial and biofilm-disrupting nanostructured TiO2 coating demonstrating photoactivity and dark activity. FEMS Microbiol Lett, 368(7). doi:10.1093/femsle/fnab039
Winkworth, R. C., Bellgard, S. E., McLenachan, P. A., & Lockhart, P. J. (2021). The mitogenome of Phytophthora agathidicida: Evidence for a not so recent arrival of the "kauri killing" Phytophthora in New Zealand. PLoS One, 16(5), e0250422. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0250422
Wu, B., & Cox, M. P. (2021). Characterization of Bicistronic Transcription in Budding Yeast. mSystems, 6(1). doi:10.1128/mSystems.01002-20
Wu, B., & Cox, M. P. (2021). Comparative genomics reveals a core gene toolbox for lifestyle transitions in Hypocreales fungi. Environ Microbiol, 23(6), 3251-3264. doi:10.1111/1462-2920.15554
Wyse, S. V., & Hulme, P. E. (2021). Dispersal potential rather than risk assessment scores predict the spread rate of non‐native pines across New Zealand. Journal of Applied Ecology. doi:10.1111/1365-2664.13947
Wyse, S. V., Hulme, P. E., & Bogdziewicz, M. (2020). Limited evidence for a consistent seed mass‐dispersal trade‐off in wind‐dispersed pines. Journal of Ecology, 109(1), 284-293. doi:10.1111/1365-2745.13477 |
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