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Bark and ambrosia beetles are acting as tiny taxis for fungi across New Zealand, giving researchers valuable clues about how these organisms travel through forests and crops. Source: Timberbiz To understand whether plant disease-causing fungi are being moved this way, Bioeconomy Science Institute Maiangi Taiao scientists are identifying the species being carried on beetles found in New Zealand forests and orchards. “While a lot is known about the beetles, less is known about the fungi that travels with them,” task lead Darryl Herron said. Since 2024, researchers across the Bioeconomy Science Institute, including teams from Lincoln, Rotorua, Ruakura, Auckland and Motueka, have been collaborating to trap bark and ambrosia beetles across New Zealand and analyse the fungi they carry, through projects funded by Better Border Biosecurity (B3) and Zespri. By combining expertise and sampling capability across teams and sites, this work has revealed a broad range of fungal associates linked to native and introduced beetle species. While most of these fungi are common plant associates, the team has detected species with the potential to disrupt plantation forestry, horticulture and native ecosystems if conditions change or new beetle species arrive. The work includes assessing potential risks to native bush, urban environments and botanical collections and monitoring beetle activity in and around orchards, where new associations and increased aggressiveness in the beetle-fungal system could pose future threats. Bark and ambrosia beetles tunnel into trees and interact with fungi in different ways. The latter carry and cultivate specific fungi, while the former pick up a more mixed assortment. Together, they’re associated with a wide range of woody plants across plantation forests, orchards, urban areas and the native estate. Their rapid breeding ability means beetle numbers can rise quickly – so their fungal passengers are never short of taxis. “It’s often these fungi that cause the greatest harm,” Darryl says. “Some fungal species block a tree’s ability to move water and nutrients, weaken natural defences or accelerate disease, particularly when trees are already stressed by drought, age or harvesting activity. “By identifying these fungal “passengers”, we’re building a clearer picture of the microscopic communities being moved across New Zealand and which beetles are more important to focus on from a biosecurity perspective. This helps us assess whether these beetles have the potential to facilitate the movement of fungi not currently established in New Zealand.” Overseas, certain beetle–fungus partnerships have caused extensive forest dieback. “Our focus is understanding what risks exist here before those impacts occur,” Darryl says. “If we know which beetles can carry damaging fungi and where they’re moving, we can respond faster and reduce the risk to forests and export markets.” The research also contributes valuable information to national surveillance efforts led by the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) and industry partners, including the Forest Owners Association, alongside other research programmes. Understanding fungal diversity being carried on these tiny beetle taxis could help refine risk modelling tools, guiding where and how surveillance and monitoring is most effective and strengthening post border surveillance. Together, these investments support New Zealand’s ability to stay ahead of emerging biosecurity risk, helping protect forests, horticulture and ecosystems and the industries and communities that depend on them. “Maintaining strong biosecurity pathways is critical for protecting plantation forestry and export markets,” Darryl says. Because bark and ambrosia beetles can occasionally arrive in wood packaging and untreated wood products brought into New Zealand, sector and public awareness remains vital. Anyone noticing dying trees accompanied by significant insect activity is asked to report it to MPI (https://report.mpi.govt.nz/pest/) or the or the Bioeconomy Science Institute (fhdiagnostics@scionresearch.com) with a clear photo of the damage and insect activity and the GPS co-ordinates or address.

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Across the country, self-seeding “wilding conifers” are spreading beyond managed forests, taking over open land, and by the government’s own assessment, cutting into water supplies in sensitive catchments. Source: Techy44 That is why this is no longer just a forestry story. It is a water story, an energy story, and a public spending story, too. The numbers help explain the urgency. New Zealand’s Ministry for Primary Industries says wilding conifers now affect more than 2 million hectares. Before the national control program was created, they were spreading across about 90,000 hectares a year, and the ministry estimates that as much as a quarter of the country could be covered within 30 years if the spread is left unchecked. That is a huge shift for landscapes that were never meant to become pine thickets. And what happens when those trees move into the wrong place? Less water, for the most part. A 2022 cost-benefit analysis tied to the national control effort says wilding conifers reduce surface flows and aquifer recharge in water sensitive catchments. It cites catchment studies showing annual surface water yields falling by 30% to 81% when pasture is replaced by radiata pine forest, and notes one study that found a 40% drop in mean annual flow when two-thirds of an experimental catchment was planted within pines. In practical terms, that can mean less water reaching rivers, reservoirs, irrigation systems, and hydro plants. Why hydroelectric power is part of the problem. That last point matters more than it may seem. The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment has warned that wildings spreading into hydro lake catchments can reduce water yields, and in turn, dam generating capacity. So yes, this reaches beyond remote hillsides and into the power system people depend on every month when the electric bill lands. New Zealand’s wilding conifer control program now costs millions. New Zealand has responded with a large, long-term control effort. MPI says that from July 2020 to June 2021, the program and its partners spent almost NZ$40 million (USD $23.45 million) on control work across 817,000 hectares. In its latest official update, the government said it has invested more than NZ$150 million (USD $88 million) in the National Wilding Conifer Control Programme since 2016, with more than NZ$33 million (USD $19.35 million) added by partners and communities. Ministers have described the trees as a threat to farmland, water catchments, native biodiversity, and wildfire resilience. That is the real takeaway here. What was once sold as useful planting now comes with a national cleanup bill.  

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In February, mining company Alcoa was hit with a $55 million penalty for illegally clearing about 2,000 hectares of WA’s Northern Jarrah Forest. About $40 million was earmarked for so-called “permanent ecological offsets,” for Alcoa to repair the damage in terms of ecology lost. Source: PhysOrg In the same breath as imposing the fine, Federal Environment Minister Murray Watt also granted Alcoa an exemption. This exemption allows Alcoa to continue mining for at least 18 months as Watt mulls a proposal to extend the company’s mining operations until 2045. This decision may rest on a critical minerals deal struck between Australia and the US last year. The Northern Jarrah Forest is a subregion in the sprawling jarrah forest bioregion, located south and east of Perth. Jarrah trees (Eucalyptus marginata) known in Noongar as djarraly, are tall, straight-growing trees whose timber has historically been in high demand. The South West of WA is the only place on Earth that plays host to the jarrah forest ecosystem, which was ostensibly protected when the WA Government banned commercial native forest logging in 2024. For at least 60 years, Alcoa has mined the vast layer of bauxite that stretches beneath the forest, clearing an estimated 28,000 hectares out of the roughly 1.8-million-hectare region. Bauxite is a reddish, clay-like rock with a high aluminum content. It is refined into a white alumina powder then smelted into solid aluminum metal. Australia is the world’s second major producer and biggest exporter of alumina. Demand for aluminum is rising, in part for its use in “green technology,” including electric vehicles and renewable energy infrastructure. The World Economic Forum predicts demand to increase by 40% by 2030. While Alcoa is required to restore any land it clears, a 2024 study found that cleared jarrah forest sites were not being rehabilitated to their pre-mining state. The problem is, there are two giants competing for this landscape, the mining company and the sprawling old-growth forest that grows atop it, as Kingsley Dixon points out. Dixon is a botanist at the University of Western Australia (UWA). He believes the multilayered bauxite deposits structure the ground, aiding water retention, which the northern jarrah forest has evolved to exploit. “It’s a geological relationship between the forest and the bauxite,” says Dixon. “You’re fundamentally removing the very substrate that’s created this extraordinary forest.” However, the science behind how bauxite and jarrah trees in this region support one another has not been extensively studied. Jarrah trees are slow growing, meaning they recover on scales of centuries, not decades. Professor Stephen Hopper, a botanist and conservation biologist at UWA, says that the many other plant and animal species beneath the jarrah canopy also need to recover or the whole ecosystem crumbles. “As with all Mediterranean climate areas, it’s really the shrub layer, the plants that are below the canopy, that are incredibly diverse,” says Hopper. “There are complications with trying to get stuff like that back into the landscape.” In 2023, a group of scientists released a statement with more than 150 signatories calling for a total halt to mining operations in the Northern Jarrah Forest. They warned of a potential “extinction catastrophe.” The Northern Jarrah Forest is among the most biodiverse temperate forests on Earth, with more than 800 native plant species and at least 10 endangered animal species. The South West global biodiversity hotspot—of which the Northern Jarrah is a part—boasts more than 8,000 species. Around 80% of these aren’t found anywhere else on Earth, including the critically endangered Baudin’s cockatoo, the western quoll and several rare orchid species. Alarmingly, Hopper says that about two-thirds of the threatened plant and animal species in this bioregion live in the uplands, which is where bauxite mining tends to happen. “Bauxite is deepest and richest in the remnant fragments that are highest in the landscape,” says Hopper. “The notion of extending the mining leases to take out substantial further areas without having a clear biological understanding of how to care for this stuff is of concern.”  

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