CRC for Plant Biosecurity - Zhang

Plant viruses – Friend or Foe?

VANMEURSA — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 00:15:13 +0000

The 9th Australasian Plant Virology Workshop (APVW) titled Plant viruses – friend or foe? was held in Melbourne from 16-19 October 2010. The APVW showcased the importance of virus and virus-like organisms to agriculture and highlighted the challenges ahead with respect to disease control.

Victorian Department of Primary Industries’ scientists Linda Zheng, Fiona Constable and Brendan Rodoni were the convenors of the workshop. The bi-annual workshop sponsored by the CRCNPB was attended by 86 participants from 10 countries including: Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Belgium, The Netherlands, USA, Canada, Thailand, India and Japan. 55 oral presentations and 20 posters reported research activities over the four day workshop relating to:

plant virus ecology and diversity
new and emerging viruses;
virus-like organisms
plant virus diversity and detection
new tools and technologies
plant host-virus interactions, and
plant virus epidemiology and climate change.

Results from a number of CRCNPB related projects were presented during the workshop through five oral and one poster presentations.

Dr Ko Verhoeven from the Plant Protection Service, Wageningen, The Netherlands, attended the workshop and presented a keynote address on pospoviroids titled: Identification and epidemiology of pospiviroids. Ko is a world expert on the detection and characterisation of PSTVd and related pospoviroids that infect solanaceous hosts. CRC PhD candidate Alison Mackie (UWA/DAFWA) presented a poster entitled Retention time of infectious Potato spindle tuber viroid (PSTVd) on common surfaces” as part of her project on PSTVd. Potential collaboration between the CRCNPB and Dutch research groups on PSTVd were discussed.

The Richard Ellis Ford Matthews lecture titled Expanding concepts of plant viruses was presented by Professor Ulrich Melcher (Oklahoma State University) and introduced the concepts of plant virus ecology to the conference participants. Plant viruses are generally regarded as highly undesirable pathogens of plants. However this dogma is a very narrow and prejudiced view of plant-associated viruses. Next generation sequencing strategies are identifying viruses in abundance in natural systems. Analysis of sequence data suggests that these viruses are ancient parts of ecosystems and have not evolved as pathogens. This presentation highlighted the significant, yet subtle role plant viruses play in natural plant ecosystems.

Article written by: Brendan Rodoni

CRC60111: Russian Wheat Aphid – Supervisors Meeting and Strengthening Collaborations

VANMEURSA — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 23:08:33 +0000

Dr Susan Fuller travelled to China to meet with PhD candidate, Ms Bo Zhang and her supervisors Owain Edwards (CSIRO) and Dr Le Kang (Chinese Academy of Science). Susan is the principal supervisor for Bo’s PhD project CRC60111: Russian Wheat Aphid. The purpose of Susan’s visit was to ensure that field sampling and initial lab work was well planned and that Bo’s project continued to meet proposed timelines. Travelling to China was also an opportunity for Susan to guide Bo in her laboratory studies, particularly in the area of microsatellite DNA marker development and screening. Furthermore, this trip helped Susan to deepen collaborative relationship between Australian and Chinese researchers.

The CRCNPB project 60111: Russian Wheat Aphids represents an extremely important step in Susan’s research career, as the project is helping her to build professional links both domestically (with CSIRO) and internationally (with the Chinese Academy of Sciences). Linkages of this type are extremely beneficial for both short and long term career progression.

Susan found that travelling to China was extremely beneficial, as meeting face-to-face with international partners, in their home laboratories was much more valuable in developing personal links than a year’s worth of exchanged emails.

The Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing will act as a base to study populations of the Russian wheat aphid in its native range, western China. This collaboration is ideal in terms of facilitating collection of samples, which when compared with samples from invasive populations, will provide valuable management information for what is considered to be one of the greatest biosecurity threats to the grains industry in Australia. The expected outcome of the project is the development of an improved, pre-emptive biosecurity plan for the Russian Wheat Aphid.

This travel proposal has lead to the further strengthening of collaborative links between Australian and Chinese researchers. It has also facilitated knowledge transfer and research approaches in invasion biology/biosecurity amongst the researchers and organisations involved. This travel grant has allowed Susan to meet with all partners involved in the CRC60111: Russian Wheat Aphid project and to coordinate the management of the research program for the next 12 months.

During this visit, Susan also had the opportunity to meet with Dr Qiao, a world-renowned aphid taxonomist, who has agreed to provide Bo with access to the aphid collection in the Beijing Museum of Zoology. This represents a very valuable connection and future collaboration.

CRC60111: Russian Wheat Aphid - PhD

VANMEURSA — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 06:08:45 +0000