Do you know which native bee, butterfly, wasp, fly, moth, beetle, thrip and ant species frequent your garden to pollinate flowers, fruit and vegetables? There are over two thousand of these insects in Australia but relatively little is known about their distribution, populations, interactions or their pollination habits.

Filling the gaps in our understanding of the ecology of these insects, and how this changes over time, has important implications, not only for their conservation, but also for our food supply as many are thought to contribute to pollination of crops and gardens.

A national citizen science project is addressing this knowledge gap. The Wild Pollinator Count, an evidence-based independent project, aims to count Australia’s wild pollinators and learn more about what is happening to them. Everyone is encouraged to get involved, discover which pollinators live in your local environment and contribute to research which will help scientists build a database on wild pollinator activity.

The autumn 2020 Wild Pollinator Count starts this Sunday, 12 April and runs until the following Sunday, 19 April.

The project was started by a couple of researchers and educators with a passion to learn more about our wild pollinators. For Dr Manu Saunders, an ecologist at the University of New England, and Karen Retra, native bee naturalist, beekeeper and permaculture teacher, it is a labour of love. They run the project in their own time and with no funding, simply to learn more about our wild insect pollinators, contribute to their conservation and to give them the attention they deserve.

To get involved visit the Wild Pollinator Count website (https://wildpollinatorcount.com/count-pollinators) where you will find information on how to count pollinators, identify the insects you see, as well as a handy tally sheet to record your observations.

Then all you need to do is find some flowering plants, spend 10 minutes watching for visitors and submit your observations via the website. During the week you can submit as many 10-minute observations as you like.

Observations from the Wild Pollinator Count will build a picture of the ecology of wild pollinators, what plants they visit, where they are found and how they are affected by human activities. Participation from the public means that many observations, from an extensive area can be collected, something that would be impossible otherwise.

Once a large enough, long-term data set is available it will enable the researchers to analyse it for trends and contribute to our understanding of native pollinator ecological dynamics.

Its a great opportunity to learn more about the insects that frequent your patch and contribute to science. So find some flowers and start counting!

Viruses are by far the most abundant biological entities on Earth and they outnumber all the others put together. But are they a form of life or an organic structure?

Viruses contain genetic material, reproduce and evolve. However, they do not posses a true cellular structure, which is often regarded as the basic unit of life, or have their own metabolism. For this reason they are referred to as “organisms at the edge of life” and opinion is still divided on whether they are a life form, or organic structures that interact with living organisms.

Viruses are tiny, about 100 times smaller than bacterial cells. Although their pathogenic qualities were known they eluded discovery as the causative agent until relatively recently in our scientific history. Most viruses cannot be seen with an optical microscope and their structure was not described until the invention of electron microscopy in 1931.

Outside a host organism viruses exist as particles called virions. They consist of genetic material, DNA or RNA, surrounded by a protective protein coat. Some viruses also have a lipid envelope.

A virus relies on a host to replicate, they require the metabolism of the host cell to assemble copies of themselves. They infect all types of cellular life including animals, plants, bacteria and fungi. Some can only infect a limited range of hosts and can be species specific while others have a broad range. For example, smallpox can only infect humans while the rabies virus can infect a variety of mammals.

Transmission of viruses can be vertical, from mother to offspring, or horizontal, from host to host. Horizontal transmission can occur via a number of pathways; transmission of body fluids such as blood or saliva, spread by coughing and sneezing, entering the body in food or water by the faecal–oral route and a range of vectors such as mosquitoes, or aphids that transfer sap from plant to plant.

Most viruses elicit an immune response in host organisms, eliminating the virus and providing immunity to future infections. Some viruses elude this immune response by constantly changing the structure of their surface proteins. Viruses are difficult to treat because they use the hosts’ metabolic pathways to reproduce, drugs that interfere with viral replication can also cause toxic effects to the host. Vaccination has proven to be the most effective medical intervention, providing immunity to infection.

However, most viruses are fragile when outside a host organism. The simple act of washing your hands with soap is one of the most effective ways of preventing infection and spread. By surrounding the viruses on your skin with soap, a surfactant, the lipid envelopes enclosing the virus are ruptured, spilling essential proteins and rendering the virus useless.

If you have ever had a soil test done you will have noticed one of the first parameters to be listed in the results is pH. But what is soil pH and why is it important?

Soil pH represents the degree of acidity or alkalinity and is a measure of the concentration of hydrogen ions in the soil solution. Soil pH ranges between about 3 (very acidic) to 10 (very alkaline). In our region soils typically have a pH range of 4.5-7, but can be as high as 8 or 9 in areas with limestone outcrops.

The pH of a substrate, like soil, affects the behaviour of the chemicals contained within it; influencing the form of these substances and the reactions and chemical processes they undergo. The acidity of soil impacts on the availability of elements and compounds, both beneficial and detrimental, to plants.

Compounds from the soil enter plants via their root system and must be present in a soluble form in order to be taken up with water. Different plant species are adapted to soils of different pH ranges and some have adapted to cope with extremes, but in general the optimum is between pH 5.5 and 8. In this range essential nutrients needed for plant growth are available in abundance in their soluble form and harmful substances are not present at toxic levels.

Deficiencies in essential nutrients are a limiting factor for plant metabolism and result in slow growth rates and poor yields. For example, zinc, which is required in a large number of plant enzymes and plays a crucial role in DNA transcription, and copper, which is necessary for photosynthesis, are present in their soluble forms at soil pH 4.5-8. Soil pH between 5.5 and 8 provides the most favourable conditions for maintaining essential macro and micro-nutrients in their plant-available forms.

Conversely, aluminium is insoluble in this range. This is good news because aluminium, which is present in all soils, is extremely toxic to plants in its soluble form. Aluminium severely limits root growth by inhibiting a number of physiological pathways, and plants experiencing toxicity can exhibit moisture stress even when the soil is relatively moist.

Whether it’s in your garden, crop or pasture, if you are examining the factors that are constraining plant growth, checking the pH of your soil might be a good place to start.

In our climate, the cold temperatures experienced over the winter months are the principal factor affecting pasture growth and can result in a winter feed gap. What if you could supplement livestock nutrition by providing additional fodder while improving soil structure and nutrient cycling and build soil carbon at the same time?

In collaboration with farmer, Colin Seis, Watershed Landcare have launched a project to demonstrate and research the benefits of multispecies forage crops for increased animal performance and soil health. As part of their community focused Australian Good Meat initiative, Meat & Lifestock Australia (MLA) in partnership with Landcare Australia have funded the trial site through the MLA Landcare Excellence in Sustainable Farming Grants.

The project will build on growing evidence from the USA and Australia which has shown that multispecies crops and pasture diversity will increase soil carbon, nutrient cycling, and improve soil biology and farm ecosystems.

The project will be carried out at ‘Winona’, 20 km north of Gulgong NSW. ‘Winona’ consists of 840 ha of restored native pasture which runs 4000 merino sheep for wool, merino lamb, and mutton production.

The project will zero till a multispecies mix forage crop into a dormant native grassland. A mix of up to 10 species in a multispecies crop with its diverse mix of plant roots and flowering plants aims to build soil carbon and biology which cycles nutrients. An adjacent area (paddock division) will be sown to a single species fodder crop as a comparison. The project and control paddocks will be used to fatten and finish merino lambs, with weight increases in the sheep periodically monitored over the course of the trial. Changes in soil carbon, soil structure and chemistry and grassland species will be monitored pre-sowing and post-grazing.

Multispecies pasture cropping has multiple benefits for livestock producers. It provides a viable farm adaptation to reduced and changing rainfall events; by sowing an opportunity crop to provide high quality livestock feed while reducing financial risk.

Besides increasing livestock performance, and so farm profitability and sustainability, multispecies pasture crops have long-term benefits for soil nutrient cycling, biology, pasture productivity and increase soil carbon sequestration which can offset livestock emissions.

Additionally, pasture management over the entire property can be improved during the winter feed gap. By establishing a multi-species autumn crop and providing additional fodder through winter, pasture rest times can be maintained and overgrazing prevented on adjacent paddocks; improving future growth rates of pastures, reducing bare ground, and reducing weed invasion whilst maintaining stock health.

The project will gather data of lamb performance (weight gain), crop biomass, pasture species composition, and soil chemistry and structure, providing objective data evidence of this practice.

The trial will continue until 2024 by sowing a diverse multi-species forage crop on the same area and monitoring the changes in soil carbon and nutrient cycling over a longer time frame.