Online Seminar

 This month's Entomological Society of New South Wales Online Seminar Series features Dr Lachlan Jones speaking on "Mountains to tropics - a entomological postdoc journey on 3 continents".

Bio: Dr Lachlan Jones is a postdoctoral researcher at Charles Sturt University. He completed his PhD in 2020 on host acceptance behaviour of generalist herbivores under Prof Gimme Walter at the University of Queensland. He has since held postdoctoral roles in pollinator ecology and conservation at North Carolina State University and Royal Holloway University of London, and after returning to Australia, has recently completed a project on sesame crop protection with Charles Sturt University.

Abstract: In this talk, I'll cover the highlights of 3 research projects I've worked on over the last 3.5 years. The first, in 2023, used a long-term solitary bee collection from the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. This ecosystem is rapidly warming, leading to earlier snowmelt and shifted bee emergence and plant flowering times. My project involved measuring thorax width of bees collected in early and late snowmelt years to test whether climate could lead to a shift in body size. The second project was on disease ecology of British bumblebees, specifically relating to how a molecule called callunene found in the nectar of heather plants could protect bees from infection with a gut parasite called Crithidia bombi. The third, most recent project, is part of a wider effort by AgriFutures to establish a sesame-growing industry in Australia. My role involved surveying trial crops across northern Australia to determine the commonly occurring pests and beneficial insects, as well as testing levels of damage caused by specific pests for calculating spray thresholds for growers. 

Seminar link - all welcome

https://teams.microsoft.com/meet/44988185301720?p=JPLTLeoPoFBJuLjcnK