Insect Ecology Lab

The position of Technical Officer-Insect Ecology is supported by a three-year grant awarded to the Centre for Behavioural and Physiological Ecology (CBPE) by the Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC). The position will provide technical support for an integrated pest management and insect pest identification service with a focus on insect species relevant to the Grains Industry. The Technical Officer-Insect Ecology will also assist in insect sorting, laboratory set-up and management of the laboratory and field equipment.

The appointee will be the first point of contact for stakeholders using or enquiring about the insect identification service and be involved in outreach events to promote and disseminate information about the service. The position will involve travel to the grain growing areas of northern NSW and may require on-farm liaising.

Applicants must have experience in and an ability to competently identify insect pest species in crops, ideally in grains and knowledge of general laboratory and field techniques and procedures. Applicants must also have good interpersonal and oral and written communication skills, computer skills, demonstrated accuracy and attention to detail and ability to prioritise work and to meet deadlines.

This is a fixed term position available until 30 June 2012. Subject to funding and satisfactory performance, there is the possibility of further appointment. While one full-time, fixed term position is currently available, it could be filled by two part-time positions. Applicants should indicate their preference for full-time or part-time work.

This position would ideally suit someone who wishes to retain their career focus while also having the desire for a life-style change in beautiful Armidale, New England. Armidale is surrounded by world heritage national parks, is only 2 hours from the mid north coast and is a unique country town that offers all the facilities of a city. Recognised as a centre for culture, Armidale is well served for art, music, theatre and education, both public and private. KPMG demographer Bernard Salt has rated Armidale in the top 10 boom towns in Australia due to construction and education. http://www.armidaletourism.com.au/

Informal enquiries may be directed to Dr Nigel Andrew, ph: (02) 6773 2937 or e-mail: insect.ecology@une.edu.au . For further information about the School visit www.une.edu.au/ers/

Salary $44,467 to $48,152 per annum (HEO Level 4)

plus 17% employer superannuation and optional salary packaging

Closing Date: 9 November 2009

Reference Number: 209/152w

http://www.une.edu.au/recruit/2009/2009-151-200/209-152.php

Honours Project: Dung Beetles, Parasitic Nematodes and Climate Change

University of New England: Southcott Honours Scholarship in Parasitology ($5000)

Dung beetles, both native and introduced, are essential for nutrient cycling on sheep and cattle farms on the Northern Tablelands of NSW. Dung beetles eat, shred and bury mammal dung, and so enhance productivity and soil health by:

· increasing soil carbon levels

· recycling many nutrients (nitrogen, phosphorus, sulphur) that would otherwise either be lost to the atmosphere or be locked up in dried out pads left on the surface

· increasing the water infiltration rate of soils

· improving the water quality of runoff

· increasing earthworm numbers, as they move in to use the abandoned dung beetle tunnels

· destroying larvae of nuisance bush flies and damaging buffalo flies

· removing dung from the surface of paddocks - pads significantly reduce the amount of surface area available for pasture production and also cause rank growth around the pads that is not palatable to livestock

· reducing the need for artificial fertilisers and other farm chemicals

However, we still know very little about dung beetle ecology and most research has been done on cattle dung.

In processing the dung, the dung beetles also kill many livestock parasite eggs. A recent study, conducted by the Northern Tablelands Dung Beetle Express and CSIRO at Chiswick, has shown that native and introduced dung beetles process sheep dung and reduce survival of the parasitic nematode, Barber’s Pole Worm (Haemonchus contortus), to varying degrees. H. contortus is the main parasite of sheep in the region and presently requires frequent drenching for its control.

Data collected over the last 35 years suggest that the life cycle of H. contortus has changed as the climate has warmed. Larvae no longer go into a diapause-like inhibition of development during winter. Instead they continue to develop to egg laying adults and so affect sheep health all year round.

Much more work needs to be done to determine:

· which species of beetle will process sheep dung, under what conditions, and how fast;

· how temperature and rainfall influence beetle activity;

· how beetle activity influences nematode egg and larval development and survival;

· to what extent healthy dung beetle populations might reduce the need for drenching; and

· whether dung beetles act as transport vectors for nematode larvae.

Southcott Honours Scholarships in Parasitology of $5000 per Honours student, to go towards living expenses, are available. Projects would need to include work on parasitic nematodes and be conducted at Chiswick Research Station (10kim south of Armidale).

This would be a great opportunity for students to gain broad experience working with UNE, CSIRO and the Northern Tablelands Dung Beetle Express (NTDBE) and to contribute to the development of sustainable agriculture in the region in the face of climate change. The NTDBE is a community group made up of landholders, Landcare and CMA staff and has over 10 years experience in establishing and monitoring dung beetles in the region.

For more information contact: Dr Nigel Andrew nigel.andrew@une.edu.au. For further information on the Southcott Honours Scholarship in Parasitology visit: http://www.une.edu.au/scholarships/undergraduate/southcott.php

It has been a very busy past few months in the Insect Ecology lab at the University of New England. We have finally got our website up and running: http://www.une.edu.au/ers/research/insect-ecology-lab/. Nigel Andrew recently attended INTECOL, organising (and presenting in) a symposium on the Potential impacts of global climate change on terrestrial insects. He will also be attending the National Invertebrate Pest Initiative workshop organised by GRDC and CSIRO in Canberra (13^th-14^th October), and give an invited seminar at CSIRO Entomology, Black Mountain). Unfortunately he couldn’t attend the Darwin meeting do to teaching commitments. Dr John Terblanche (University of Stellenbosch, South Africa) will be visiting the lab in late October/November to continue collaborative research into insect strategies for adapting and coping with climate change. Dr Heloise Gibb (La Trobe Uni) will also be visiting the lab in November.

Dr Nereda Christian has started as an Associate Lecturer in Insect Ecology to initiate an extension and research project funded by the Grain Research and Development Corporation (GRDC): INTRODUCTION AND EXTENSION OF IPM IN NORTHERN NSW. This project aims to assist in the development and expansion of Integrated Pest Management strategies, including area-wide management, and expertise across the grain growing regions of northern NSW. To this end the project will develop an IPM research and communication strategy that will incorporate a pest insect identification service with the aim of improving knowledge in the area of invertebrate pest control and IPM in the northern NSW grain growing region. Nereda will be giving an introductory talk at the NIPI workshop in Canberra. This project is currently looking to employ a technician to assist with Insect Identification an extension work with Northern NSW farmers (closing date is early November). Dr Mohammad Khusro started working on a scoping study funded by the Poultry CRC: Insects as poultry food (in collaboration with Dr Adrian Nicholas from the Tamworth Agricultural Institute) . This project will identify waste products being produced in the three major free-range chicken production areas, identify the potential of the waste product to be used as an insect food source, and hopefully initiate pilot studies on capacity of different insects to feed on waste products and the capacity of the insects to be reared using simple/ cost effective and productive methods. Dr Kerri Clarke has been continuing sorting through samples of Acacia insects collected from around NSW. This project (Ecology of insect herbivore assemblages: influence of climate, evolutionary history and plant traits) is nearing completion (ARC funded 2007-2009) and data is slowly emerging from the masses of insect-infested vials that we have accumulated.

PhD student Tom Mooney is preparing to return to Macquarie Island for his second field season. He is assessing the response of soil invertebrates to hydrocarbon contaminated sub-Antarctic soil (in conjunction with the Australian Antarctic Division). Recently Tom gave a seminar on his research at the 13th Australasian Society for Ecotoxicology Conference in Adelaide. Matt Binns has been spending much of the last four months driving around Victoria and NSW assessing potential survey and transplant experiment sites for his PhD: Predicting the effect of climate change on community structure and function: an assessment using grassland invertebrates (Co-supervisors: David Warton UNSW and Dr Heloise Gibb LaTrobe, ARC funded 2009-2011). We are developing predictive models to describe how grassland invertebrate community structure relates to climate. This will be based on field assessments over a large climatic gradient, the community structure will be characterised by species composition and insect morphological traits. The results of the survey will be compared to a transplant experiment where the predictions for invertebrate community structure are tested by moving existing grassland hosts to new climatic conditions to simulate climate change scenarios. Chanthy Pol has been rearing Green Vegetable Bugs (Nezara viridula)and Tricopoda sp. for the last few months for his PhD project assessing IPM strategies for the control of green vegetable bug (GVB) in soybean: The potential influence of climate change on GVB and its parasitoids (Co-supervised by Dr Robin Gunning – Tamworth Agricultural Institute and Prof. Bob Martin – Primary Industries Innovation Centre: funded by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research ACIAR). He has started his experimental work assessing the population variability of reared at different temperature and humidity regimes. Chanthy will be visiting Canberra 12^th – 16^th October for the Annual ACIAR postgraduate workshop. Chris Fyfe is also an associate with the Insect Ecology Lab. She is six month into her PhD assessing the Effect of tree plantings on nematode communities in pastoral farming systems. Perrin Digby, an honours student in the lab is preparing to start fieldwork on her Honours project: Comparison of insect succession on pig carcasses in pasture and native forest habitats on the New England Tablelands, NSW. Michelle Yates, an alumni member of the lab recently gave her first conference presentation at the Darwin meeting on one aspect of her Honours project: Ant assemblage structures: patterns in remnant and pasture habitats along an environmental gradient.