Around 75% of Australian crops benefit from pollination. Some — including most apple cultivars — can’t produce fruit without it. Most pollination is enabled by commercial hives and feral nests of the introduced European honeybee (Apis mellifera). Overall, insect pollinators have declined worldwide in recent years, due to pesticide use, pathogen exposure, habitat destruction and climate change. Now, another major threat looms in Australia, a mite known as Varroa destructor. 

The rapidly spreading parasite can wipe out honeybee colonies. Despite biosecurity controls, Varroa was detected near Newcastle in 2022, and in September 2023, the National Management Group, which coordinates the national Varroa mite response, declared that the species had established itself beyond the possibility of eradication. 

Entomologist Professor James Cook, from Western’s Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment, says farmers can no longer take honeybee pollination for granted. 

Farmers and scientists are investigating whether native wild insects — which are not directly attacked by Varroa — might pick up some of the pollination slack. While the lion’s share of Australia’s crop pollination work currently falls to honeybees, native insects ferry pollen around crops too. To discover how much they contribute to orchard pollination, a fieldwork team led by ecologist Dr Amy-Marie Gilpin, also from Western, conducted insect surveys at other NSW apple orchards in Bilpin and Orange. 

Amy-Marie Gilpin is a lecturer in Invertebrate Ecology in the School of Science and is the founder and head of the Ecological Interactions Research Team.

EIRT’s research focusses on understanding the interaction between plants and the pollinators they depend upon, as well as the impact of disturbances such as fire and invasive pollinator species on these systems.

James Mackenzie Cook is a Professor in Entomology at the Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment at Western Sydney University. He has lived in the UK, Kenya and Australia and has a lifelong passion for natural history. His major academic interest is in the wide range of interactions between plants and insect pollinators. Currently, his research team focuses on insect pollinators and the services that they provide to both horticultural crops and wild plants, with a particular emphasis on the role of native bees and flies in orchards and protected cropping.

Join us for this engaging event, exploring the potential of Australian native insect crop pollinators. 

Please note: This event is hybrid (in-person and online attendance)

Physical location: Hawkesbury Campus, Building L2, Ground floor, Room 30

Online location: Zoom