Ms Allison Menzies1

1La Trobe University, Bundoora, Australia

Biography:

Allison Menzies is a Masters candidate in the Plant Reproduction and Conservation Genetics lab at La Trobe University supervised by Dr Hoebee. She is passionate about invertebrates and her MSc research involves surveying invertebrates in Illabarook Grassland Flora Reserve in central Victoria using eDNA metabarcoding and traditional techniques to link the invertebrate community to pollination services. She was awarded the Bill Borthwick VEAC scholarship in 2023.

Allison has a range of research experience including application of survey techniques in alpine and grassland habitats, combined with ecological and genetic approaches. She participated in a summer scholarship program studying the endangered species (e.g. the Alpine stonefly, Thaumatoperla alpina), as well as being lead author of a manuscript derived from an undergraduate research project involving the painted cup moth (Doratifera oxleyi).

Abstract:

Floral visitors and pollinators play a crucial role in maintaining forb and shrub diversity, performing arguably one of the most important ecosystem services in terms of plant reproduction. Yet there are surprisingly few floral visitor and pollen-transport network studies in Australian grasslands. In 2022 this study performed a comprehensive survey of the invertebrate floral visitors to five grassland flowering species at Illabarook Grassland Flora Reserve in the highly fragmented Victorian Volcanic Plains using five survey methods as part of a survey comparison study. Collected data was used in a floral visitor network analysis and collected individuals bearing pollen of the surveyed plant species were further used to create a pollen library and subsequently a pollen-transport network at the Subfamily level. Preliminary pollen-transport network results reveal a surprisingly resilient level of modularity, indicating well-defined communities based on surveyed plant species. This talk will present these data, delving deeper into morphospecies where possible, looking at the effectiveness of identified generalists such as Scoliinae, Apinae and Phalacrinae and contrasting with specialists such as Hesperiinae, Arctiinae, and Nomiinae.