Past Events › Talk

Mistletoe expert Tony Start will talk about what started his interest in mistletoes and his subsequent studies to pose the question - where do they fit in the world of parasitic plants? Tony will then discuss some of the mistletoes of Western Australia (especially those of southern WA) and some ecological issues.

Dr Siegy Krauss and his team are employing camera traps, selective pollinator exclusion experiments and genotyping of seeds to assess the impacts of different classes of visitors (birds, honey possums, insects) to the flowers of banksias, eucalypts and kangaroo paws. Results support the hypothesis that birds are critical pollinators with unique genetic consequences for the plants they pollinate.

Leonie Monks will describe the plant translocations of threatened species underway in Western Australia and use case studies to highlight how information gained during the two decades of translocation implementation has been used to inform and improve management practice and to better understand ecological and genetic factors that influence population persistence and resilience.