Natural communities of plants, insect herbivores and their natural enemies make up most of the species on Earth and contribute to many crucial ecosystem functions. From a human perspective, these communities include both food crops and noxious weeds, useful pollinators and harmful pests, and useful biocontrol agents. This projects aims to improve understanding of why some species interact (in the sense of eating, or being eaten) with more species than others, and also what determines which species interact. The research focusses on natural communities of gallwasp herbivores and parasitoid natural enemies associated with roses and oaks and related plants across the Northern Hemisphere. The work involves international collaborations with scientists in the USA, Hungary and China.
We see major beneficiaries as falling into three groups:
(i) Governmental organisations, particularly Defra (the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs), SEPA (the Scottish Environment Protection Agency), and Natural Resources Wales).
(ii) Research agencies, particularly FERA (the Food and Environment Research Agency), which maintains the Plant Health Risk Register and coordinates collection of data on OCGW and associated control measures for Defra, and Forest Research, which coordinates many of the control measures for alien forest pests.
(iii) Charitable organisations, particularly the National Trust, National Trust for Scotland, and the Woodland Trust.
We see major international beneficiaries of our work as equivalent institutions in other countries who we will reach through our Chinese project partners and IUFRO (the International Union of Forest Research Organisations), which brings together a wide range of policy makers and practitioners in forest management (see below).
