Convict Eastern Australia: Labour Bureaucracy or Police State?

AbstractAnthropocene coral reefs are faced with increasingly severe marine heatwaves and mass coral bleaching mortality events. The ensuing demographic changes to coral assemblages can have long-term impacts on reef community organisation. Thus, understanding the dynamics of subtropical scleractinian coral populations is essential to predict their recovery or extinction post-disturbance. Here we present a 10-yr demographic assessment of a subtropical endemic coral, Pocillopora aliciae (Schmidt-Roach et al. in Zootaxa 3626:576–582, 2013) from the Solitary Islands Marine Park, eastern Australia, paired with long-term temperature records. These coral populations are regularly affected by storms, undergo seasonal thermal variability, and are increasingly impacted by severe marine heatwaves. We examined the demographic processes governing the persistence of these populations using inference from size-frequency distributions based on log-transformed planar area measurements of 7196 coral colonies. Specifically, the size-frequency distribution mean, coefficient of variation, skewness, kurtosis, and coral density were applied to describe population dynamics. Generalised Linear Mixed Effects Models were used to determine temporal trends and test demographic responses to heat stress. Temporal variation in size-frequency distributions revealed various population processes, from recruitment pulses and cohort growth, to bleaching impacts and temperature dependencies. Sporadic recruitment pulses likely support population persistence, illustrated in 2010 by strong positively skewed size-frequency distributions and the highest density of juvenile corals measured during the study. Increasing mean colony size over the following 6 yr indicates further cohort growth of these recruits. Severe heat stress in 2016 resulted in mass bleaching mortality and a 51% decline in coral density. Moderate heat stress in the following years was associated with suppressed P. aliciae recruitment and a lack of early recovery, marked by an exponential decrease of juvenile density (i.e. recruitment) with increasing heat stress. Here, population reliance on sporadic recruitment and susceptibility to heat stress underpin the vulnerability of subtropical coral assemblages to climate change.

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Hymenopteran Parasitoids of Aphid Pests within Australian Grain Production Landscapes

Insects ◽

10.3390/insects12010044 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 12 (1) ◽

pp. 44

Author(s):

Samantha E. Ward ◽

Paul A. Umina ◽

Sarina Macfadyen ◽

Ary A. Hoffmann

Keyword(s):

Aphid Species ◽

Crop Growth ◽

Diaeretiella Rapae ◽

Field Variation ◽

Grain Crops ◽

Growing Seasons ◽

Crop Type ◽

Eastern Australia ◽

Crop Growth Stage ◽

Hymenopteran Parasitoids

In grain crops, aphids are important pests, but they can be suppressed by hymenopteran parasitoids. A challenge in incorporating parasitoids into Integrated Pest Management (IPM) programs, however, is that parasitoid numbers can be low during periods within the season when aphids are most damaging. Understanding the population dynamics of key aphid species and their parasitoids is central to ameliorating this problem. To examine the composition and seasonal trends of both aphid and parasitoid populations in south-eastern Australia, samples were taken throughout the winter growing seasons of 2017 and 2018 in 28 fields of wheat and canola. Myzus persicae (Sulzer) was the most abundant aphid species, particularly within canola crops. Across all fields, aphid populations remained relatively low during the early stages of crop growth and increased as the season progressed. Seasonal patterns were consistent across sites, due to climate, crop growth stage, and interactions between these factors. For canola, field edges did not appear to act as reservoirs for either aphids or parasitoids, as there was little overlap in the community composition of either, but for wheat there was much similarity. This is likely due to the presence of similar host plants within field edges and the neighbouring crop, enabling the same aphid species to persist within both areas. Diaeretiella rapae (M’Intosh) was the most common parasitoid across our study, particularly in canola, yet was present only in low abundance at field edges. The most common parasitoid in wheat fields was Aphidius matricariae (Haliday), with field edges likely acting as a reservoir for this species. Secondary parasitoid numbers were consistently low across our study. Differences in parasitoid species composition are discussed in relation to crop type, inter-field variation, and aphid host. The results highlight potential focal management areas and parasitoids that could help control aphid pests within grain crops.

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