Distinguished Professor Philip Hulme is a leading international invasion biologist in the Bio-Protection Research Centre, Lincoln University, New Zealand. His primary research focus is predicting the risks arising from plant invasions.
A scientist working on the MBIE funded AgResearch project “Managing Herbicide Resistance”, Philip joins Georgia to discuss the research he and colleagues are doing into non-herbicide weed control. Podcast here>
Philip’s recent work includes examining the traits that underpin the success of invasive species; clarifying the main routes by which these species are introduced to a region, quantifying the impacts of invasive species on these habitats and predicting the potential impact of climate change on invasive species distributions.
Philip and colleagues are applying a “big data” approach to the problem of herbicide resistant weeds (HRW) to improve our information and evidence-base to raise NZ economic productivity.
Only now are sufficient data available globally on HRW for innovative analyses to quantify the future risks of HRW for NZ – through both unintentional introduction and in situ evolution of resistant genotypes. To date, all approaches worldwide to predict HRW risks have focused on individual weed species and have adopted a population genetic modelling approach to assess the conditions under which resistance may evolve. However, these approaches cannot predict potential risks of new HRW and are not appropriate for screening large numbers of HRW.
Philip’s group is using global datasets on HRW worldwide to establish prior probabilities of HRW risks. The research is structured along four sequential aims that will
a) Predict the assemblage of HRW worldwide that have a high probability of becoming established in NZ and distinguish both onshore and offshore risks
b) Assess the species characteristics that predispose a weed to become herbicide resistant and forecast new HRW threats to NZ
c) Characterise the climatic, agricultural and socioeconomic correlates of global HRW richness to identify the potential drivers of future HRW in NZ, and
d) Formulate and disseminate national and sector-specific strategies for avoidance of future HRW in NZ.
Many thanks Philip, and our virtual conference sponsors
