The Almond PhD will investigate the diversity and ecology of natural enemies that feed on the two major pests facing the industry: Carob moth (Ectomyelois ceratoniae) and almond carpophilus beetle (Carpophilus truncatus), with the goal of developing biological control strategies for IPM.

The Grains PhD aims to optimise methods for
trapping and collecting invertebrate samples from
the field for the detection of endemic and exotic
pests and pathogens of significance for the grains
industry using #metabarcoding.

The phylloxera PhD aims to understand the genetic basis of virulence on different grapevine rootstocks using genomic, transcriptomic techniques along with novel insect-plant bioassay methods. 🍇🍷

And then Stephen Penrose, who I co-supervise with @coralwarr.bsky.social gave a brilliant talk on his work towards functional characterisation of Queensland fruit fly odourant receptors and how it could support development of new attractants!

My PhD student Lachlan Gretgrix gave his first conference talk on improving quantification of #metabarcoding assays for agroecosystem monitoring! Presenting experiments using unique molecular identifiers to reduce amplification bias