Floral ‘enhancement’ strips of native and exotic species are being assessed by Western Sydney University (WSU) PhD student Lena Alice Schmidt for differences in their ability to attract and meet the dietary requirements of native bees, flies, wasps and other pollinators.

The work is part of cross-industry and Government-funded Healthy bee populations for sustainable pollination in horticulture project.

Floral strips were established in trials at Richmond, and at Shields Orchard in Bilpin, NSW, to assess visitation rates and the foraging preferences of wild insect pollinators for selected native and exotic plants.

“My research is focussed on understanding how different plant species can support and encourage diverse pollinator communities within orchards with the aim of securing their pollination services now and in to the future,” Lena said.

It is widely known that pollination is a critical ecosystem service for many food crops and wild plants; however, around the world, many populations of wild bees and other insect pollinators are in decline. The main bee species deployed by growers to provide pollination services to crops is the European honeybee (Apis mellifera). In Australia, we are in the fortunate position that feral and managed honeybee populations have not yet been decimated by the Varroa mite (Varroa destructor). However, as Varroa mite establishment seems inevitable, other, wild insect pollinators, including native bees, will have an even more vital role to play in the future, from both an ecological and a food security perspective.

This systematic review evaluates the current global impact of invasive infections caused by Pneumocystis jirovecii (principally pneumonia: PJP), and was carried out to inform the World Health Organization Fungal Priority Pathogens List. PubMed and Web of Science were used to find studies reporting mortality, inpatient care, complications/sequelae, antifungal susceptibility/resistance, preventability, annual incidence, global distribution, and emergence in the past 10 years, published from January 2011 to February 2021. Reported mortality is highly variable, depending on the patient population: In studies of persons with HIV, mortality was reported at 5%–30%, while in studies of persons without HIV, mortality ranged from 4% to 76%. Risk factors for disease principally include immunosuppression from HIV, but other types of immunosuppression are increasingly recognised, including solid organ and haematopoietic stem cell transplantation, autoimmune and inflammatory disease, and chemotherapy for cancer. Although prophylaxis is available and generally effective, burdensome side effects may lead to discontinuation. After a period of decline associated with improvement in access to HIV treatment, new risk groups of immunosuppressed patients with PJP are increasingly identified, including solid organ transplant patients.

This paper evaluates the potential of very high resolution multispectral (Worldview-3) satellite imagery for mapping yield parameters in avocado and macadamia orchards. An evaluation of 18 structural and pigment based vegetation indices (VIs) derived from Worldview-3 imagery identified a positive relationship to nut/ fruit weight (kg/tree) R² > 0.69 for macadamia and R² > 0.68 for avocado; and nut/ fruit number (per tree) R² >0.6 for macadamia and R² >0.61 for avocado. Using the algorithms derived between the optimal VI and the measured parameter, yield and nut/ fruit number maps were derived for each block. In the absence of a commercial yield monitor, the resulting yield maps offer significant benefit to growers for improving orchard management, harvest scheduling, and forward selling decisions.