Promoting bee health and crop pollination

Our research focuses on the maintenance and enhancement of bees as pollinators of crops and native plants. We aim to improve management decisions to improve bee health, biodiversity, and crop pollination services, outside and in greenhouses. To achieve this, we try to better understand bee behaviour, including  foraging, nesting and mating behaviour, so their natural requirements can be better met. In addition,we aim to translate this information to beekeepers, growers of pollination dependent crops and restoration and land care managers, to improve landscape support for crop pollinators.

Currently, the group is heavily involved in a large collaboration between South Australian researchers, primary industries, governmental organisations and NGOs to design habitat for crop pollinators around, lucerne, apple/pear, canola, and almond. The project is supported through funding from the Australian Government Department of Agriculture and Water Resources as part of its Rural R&D for Profit Programme. We are also part of the newly started CRC for honey bee products, where we will investigate the potential for plantings in and among almond orchards for honey production.

Taxonomy

About 30% of Australian bees is as yet undescribed. We try to remedy this by describing new species. Another issue is that the known species are often difficult to identify because there is a great lack of experts, and only half are covered by identification keys. We try to offer a way out by raising funds to create a barcode library of all reliably identified species. In the future, this should enable anyone with molecular capability to identify Australian native bees.

Bees as Flying Doctors

We promote entomovectoring, i.e. the use of honey bees as flying doctors to the deliver biological control agents to flowers. This video explains some of the benefits of this method:

People

Our Research Group

Our group includes two postdocs: Scott Groom and Beth Fung, two PhD students and two honours students (see under supervision for names and projects).

Collaborations

In the School of Agriculture, Food and Wine, I collaborate mainly with Eileen Scott, Mike Keller, Kate Delaporte, Carlos Rodriguez Lopez, Tim Cavagnaro, Cas Collins,

Other collaborators within the University of Adleiade, the SA Herbarium and Museum include: Andy Lowe, Phil Weinstein, Martin Breed, Nick Gellie, Ben Sparrow, Patrick O'Connor, Michelle Waycott (Herbarium), Remko Leijs and Mark Stevens (SA Museum)...further links to be added

Within Australia: Ben Oldroyd, Tanya Latty, Romina Rader, Saul Cunningham, Michael Batley, Tim Heard, Liz Barbour.

Internationally: Marten Scheffer (Wageningen), Hayo Velthuis (Wellseind), Heikki Hokkanen (Finland), Solange Augusto (Ueberlandia), Callin Switzer and Stacey Coombe (Harvard), Robert Paxton (Halle).