CRC for Plant Biosecurity - phd

Young CRCNPB scientist recognised in national award

K.Scott — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 03:24:46 +0000

Media Release: 28 November 2008

A PhD student's commitment to plant biosecurity research has won the 2009 Northern Territory Young Australian of the Year Award.

Ms Rachel Meldrum, PhD student with the Cooperative Research Centre for National Plant Biosecurity (CRCNPB) is based at the Diagnostic Services Division of the Northern Territory's Department of Regional Development, Primary Industry, Fisheries and Resources.

Ms Meldrum was nominated for her contribution to science and the sustainability of Australia's banana industry and said she was honoured and surprised to receive the award.

‘Personally, I am flattered to win the award given the calibre of the other nominees', she said.

‘It's not often that science is given this high-level platform, so I am grateful my research in the banana industry is recognised for its importance to all Australians'.

Ms Meldrum's CRCNPB project involves researching how the exotic plant disease (Fusarium wilt) is spread in the banana industry, and will also develop alternative quarantine strategies to minimise the economic and social impact of possible incursions.

CRCNPB Chief Executive Officer, Dr Simon McKirdy said the award was a credit to Ms Meldrum's enthusiasm and dedication, and paved the way for her to have a successful career in science.

‘Rachel is a great ambassador for young scientists, which is rewarding in a time when Government recognises Australia's future science capability is critical to a strong, thriving and innovative society', he said.

Dr McKirdy said the CRCNPB is committed to training high-quality postgraduate and post-doctoral scientists to provide the nucleus of Australia's future plant biosecurity capability.

‘We currently have 26 students enrolled in universities across Australia who are all conducting research to benefit the nation', he said.

In a time when biosecurity is emerging as a serious global issue, Australia's plant industries are relatively free of many of the plant pests and diseases that impact on agricultural industries in other countries.

‘Students like Rachel, and all our researchers focus on innovative research to ensure Australia's plant industries maintain their valuable competitive advantage in the market,' said Dr McKirdy.

‘The CRCNPB plays a vital role to enhance the scientific effort, enabling Australia's plant industries to pre-empt and, therefore, diminish the economic, social and environmental impact of emergency plant pests,' he said.

The CRCNPB is the central coordinating body for plant biosecurity research across all Australian states and territories and was established under the Australian Government's Cooperative Research Centres Program.

Ms Meldrum's research is supervised by staff from the Northern Territory's Department of Regional Development, Primary Industry, Fisheries and Resources and the University of Queensland.

ends

Contact: Kate Scott, Communications Officer - Cooperative Research Centre for National Plant Biosecurity

email: k.scott@crcplantbiosecurity.com.au tel: 02 6201 2882 or 0438 389 092

Interviews: Dr Simon McKirdy, Chief Executive Officer tel: 02 6201 2882 or 0438 389 092

The fastest and smuttiest CRC PhD project…

VANMEURSA — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 01:00:56 +0000

Alistair McTaggart, of Queensland’s Department of Employment, Economic Development and Innovation, has just completed his CRC PhD project through Queensland University of Technology. In landmark work, he has completely revised the taxonomy of three large genera of smut fungi, Ustilago, Sporisorium and Macalpinomyces. This project has important biosecurity implications as this group of fungi includes many economically important pathogens such as Ustilago maydis (boil smut of maize) and Sporisorium scitamineum (sugarcane smut).

While working on a PhD is complex and certainly not a race, at this stage, Alistair will have submitted his thesis in record time. He started his PhD on 1 January 2008 (hats off to him for starting on a public holiday), had his final seminar on 2 December 2010 and says he will be submitting his thesis for examination on 24 December 2010 (just in time to relax and enjoy Christmas). This makes his whole PhD project a total of two years, 11 months and 24 days to complete.

Alistair says he attributes this to having a well designed project with a lot of support from his supervisors and also from the CRC in terms of professional development and the opportunity to travel and enhance his research outcomes.

In an effort to continue to expand his knowledge in this area, he has already secured a post-doctoral position at Louisiana State University to work on the systematics of rust fungi and to construct a rust database. With his US visa sorted out, he’s looking to head over in early 2011, where Alistair says he is “looking forward to learning something new, buying a few guitars, listening to blues music, meeting some Southern women, eating some gumbo and rockin' plant pathology.”

Alistair also says he is a little sad to finish because “he’ll never get to work on something like that again”, which could leave readers with the question of what was his project about?

Once called the ‘insidious black harvest’, smut fungi infect commercially important plants such as wheat, and grasses more generally, to produce vast amounts of fine black spores. In addition to food security threats, the mere presence of spores in a shipment of grain can – and has – posed threats to Australia’s export trade.

While smut fungi are very host-specific – infecting a narrow range of grasses – the spores from different species tend to look the same under the microscope. That makes diagnostics difficult to all but the most accomplished mycologists.

Alistair says smuts form a huge taxonomic group containing more than 500 species. The morphological features used to classify smuts can create confusion, he says, and the current classification does not accommodate the vast diversity of smut species discovered over the years.

“It is my job to try and resolve this taxonomic muddle by finding natural groups for these smut fungi,” he says. “To detect the natural groupings we have been studying morphology and using DNA sequence data to trace relationships based on similarities and divergences that occurred during evolution.”

Of particular interest is a region of the smut genome that encodes ribosomal RNA – molecules required by the cell to make proteins. In this region is the so-called ITS (the internal transcribed spacer), a stretch of DNA that has been proposed as the ‘barcode’ for all fungal organisms.
Parts of the ITS are known to change rapidly during evolution since they do not encode anything vital for fungal survival. These regions eventually become idiosyncratic among fungi. But the ITS also contains sequences that are conserved among closely related smuts. This is useful for identifying groups or genera in phylogenetics studies.

Since the ITS can distinguish both groups and species, Alistair has sequenced the ITS region of all 80 smuts in his collections. “In my groupings, you can see smuts co-evolving with grasses at the tribe and sub-tribe taxonomic levels,” he says. “So smuts of cereals like wheat, oats, and barley that are closely related also have similar morphological characters. Smuts that occur on outback Spinifex grasses similarly form a closely related group.”

The CRC wish Alistair the best of luck during the thesis examination process and look forward to him returning to Australia with valuable training in how to identify exotic rusts, and to help keep Australia safe from the nasties!

Photo caption: Alistair McTaggart accepts his award for Best Student Poster at the 2009 Science Exchange.

Photo acknowledgement: Di Harris Photographic

Plant research to protect tomato production

VANMEURSA — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 05:26:37 +0000

UQ PhD student is battling an elusive virus to save Australia's tomato sauce and sandwiches.

As part of a Cooperative Research Centre for National Plant Biosecurity project (CRCNPB) Sharon van Brunschot from the School of Biological Sciences is examining the Tomato yellow leaf curl virus, which first appeared in South-east Queensland in 2006.

Since then it has had a significant impact on tomato production, with disease incidence in some areas reaching 100 percent.

'My research will create new diagnostic methods, and help to increase Australia's capacity to stop the movement and spread of plant viruses once they have entered Australia,' Ms van Brunschot said.

Caused by a group of geminiviruses, the Tomato yellow leaf curl disease is regarded as the most significant constraint to tomato production worldwide.

Since its introduction, the virus has spread throughout South-east Queensland with particularly high incidences in Bundaberg, and is spread by the silverleaf whitefly.

'I'm looking into ways for improving the management of this virus by developing better detection methods, which are faster, easier and more accurate,' Ms van Brunschot said.

She said increases in trade and travel – the two most common sources of entry for pest and pathogens – were the likely culprits for the virus's introduction to Australia.

Although the tomato is the major host, the virus can cause disease in other crops such as chilli peppers and beans and also persists in many common weeds.

Once in Australia, the pathogens threaten Australia's plant industries and native eco-systems, she said.

'The viruses I work with evolve by exchanging genetic material, with new viruses consistently arising, the risk for more viruses evolving is high and Australia needs to be prepared with cutting edge science to quickly diagnose these threats,' Ms van Brunschot said.

Working from the Queensland Primary Industries and Fisheries at the Indooroopilly Sciences Centre, she has discovered a number of new genetic characteristics of the virus.

In September Ms van Brunschot will travel to The Netherlands on a scholarship provided by the Cooperative Research Centre for National Plant Biosecurity (CRCNPB) to continue working on virus detection technologies.

Photo acknowledgement:
Photo caption: Tomato plant with symptoms of Tomato yellow leaf curl virus
Content supplied by: University of Queensland

Revision of the Genus Epiphyas - the light-brown apple moth in context (WA focus)

VANMEURSA — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 05:27:30 +0000

2008 PhD workshop

K.Scott — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 05:51:37 +0000

The annual PhD student workshop was held on the 16 and 17 September at Rottnest Island.

Twenty four of the CRC's PhD students made the journey to Rottnest Island to enjoy two days sitting indoors and working hard while the sun shone outside.

After a pleasant ferry trip over to Rottnest Island, the students had barely put their bags down before they began grappling with the issue of intellectual property; how to recognise and protect IP, how to search for IP and how to identify market opportunities.

Dr Frances Shapter (Assoc. Research Fellow) and Associate Professor Carol Morris (Director of the Centre for Phytochemistry and Pharmacology) from Southern Cross University presented the workshop. Both Fran and Carol have been involved with the Grain Foods CRC and our students gained a lot from their expertise and assistance.

After a long day, the students relaxed at a BBQ dinner where Ern Kostas from CRC participant organisation, Co-operative Bulk Handling Limited gave an informal talk on the stored grain industry as end-users of CRC research activities.

The second day of the student workshop began with an early lecture on Leadership and Project Management delivered by Frances. The students worked hard throughout the day and in the culminating activity, presented a work breakdown structure of their PhD projects identifying end-users, stakeholders and major tasks.

Dinner on the second night included talks from CEO, Dr Simon McKirdy and Communications Officer, Kate Scott. Among other things, Simon and Kate discussed publication guidelines, branding and CRC support for the PhD students.

After a late night discussing projects and the importance of the Australian viticulture industry, the students spent a morning relaxing on the island before returning to the mainland and back to their home states and cities.

Back to The Leaflet.

Migration of Lettuce Aphid in Australia

K.Scott — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 23:40:30 +0000

Currant-Lettuce aphid (CLA), Nasonovia ribis-nigri, migrated from New Zealand to Tasmania on low-level jet streams in January 2004 and rapidly spread throughout Australia. Like many small winged insects, aphids migrate predominantly via wind and human activity. The distance of their dispersal is influenced by many factors including temperature and weather events.

As part of his PhD with the Cooperative Research Centre for National Plant Biosecurity, Craig Feutrill research is gaining an understanding how these factors interact which is critical to determining the size of quarantine zones. CLA is primarily a contamination pest, which colonises lettuce hearts and rosettes rendering them unsaleable.

A series of six nine-metre suction traps have been constructed including fully automated sampling turntables and steel support structures and three of the five permanent sited traps erected. Two on the north coast of Tasmania and one at Waterloo Corner in South Australia. The final two permanent traps will be at Yanco and near Melbourne. A sixth trap will be mobile mounted on a trailer for placing in ‘hotspots' such as Hay and the Sydney Basin.

The suction traps sample 45 cubic metres of air per minute, which when funnelled down through a fine mesh cone collects flying insects in 70ml sample jars containing polyethylene glycol. The eight jars are replaced weekly and are on an automated turntable, which segregates daily catch samples. Collaborators such as Lionel Hill, Department of Primary Industries, Water and Environment in Tasmania, replace the sample jars on a Monday morning and send them to Craig for sorting and analysis.

The data collected from the traps will be analysed compared to temperature, wind direction and speed and synoptic weather charts to gain an understanding on migration timing and patterns of dispersal.

Craig has also established a working relationship with the New Zealand lettuce aphid researchers to share data from the NZ Aphid-Watch suction trap network.

Ground surveys in most states will augment the suction trap results to establish where CLA resides when not migrating. Although we have some of the weed hosts, the aphid pest can be extremely difficult to find during summer.

For more information, contact Craig Feutrill at craig.feutrill@adelaide.edu.au

Back to The Leaflet.

CRC60003: Ascochyta Wind Tunnel - PhD

K.Scott — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 01:14:53 +0000

CRC60075: NICTA Smart Trap - PhD

K.Scott — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 00:23:15 +0000