Landcare Research myrtle rust webinar series: Forest community attributes and myrtle rust vulnerability
Beyond Myrtle Rust (BMR) is a collaborative, multi-faceted research programme by Manaaki Whenua Landcare Research and funded by the Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment (MBIE) Endeavour fund. The programme aims to study the behaviour, ecology, and impacts of the disease myrtle rust (MR) in New Zealand. Visit the website.
As part of the programme, Beyond Myrtle Rust is producing a webinar series. The next webinar in the series will focus on forest community attributes and myrtle rust vulnerability and will be presented by Kristy Stevenson, Queensland University of Technology.
- Webinar date: Wednesday, 23 October 2024
- Time: 11.00am (NZST)
Austropuccinia psidii, the causal agent of myrtle rust, has been established in South East Queensland (SEQ), Australia since 2011. While there is growing data available on the impacts of myrtle rust on individual species in Australia, there is limited data on the impacts of the pathogen at the plant community level. Wet sclerophyll forests are a native forest community found in SEQ that have a eucalypt overstory and a species rich rainforest understorey. There is evidence that myrtle rust has markedly impacted some wet sclerophyll forests by significantly increasing the density of dead and dying trees in the mid/understorey canopy layer. However, evidence is from only a few sites that contained a high proportion of susceptible Myrtaceae trees.
In this webinar, Kristy Stevenson (School of Biology and Environmental Science Research Associate at the Queensland University of Technology) will share some early results from a project that aims to investigate impacts of current land tenure, historic land clearing, and host density on myrtle rust impacts in a single wet sclerophyll community represented at 15 sites spread across three neighbouring valleys.
Note: Once registered you will receive future invites to the myrtle rust webinar series.
