Lab of Evolutionary Genetics and Sociality

Central Australia is a severely under sampled region for insect diversity. Therefore, when an opportunity arose to travel through the red centre to attend the 49th Annual Australian Entomological Society Conference 2018 held in Alice Springs, we jumped at the chance. Two and half weeks of intense fieldwork, dusty everything and entomologists galore yielded some fantastic insects, with some of these groups never recorded in the area before.

James Dorey’s phenomenal photography once again capturing the beauty in our fieldwork.

James Dorey, Olivia Davies and Ben Parslow from our Flinders LEGS lab led the field trip with the fantastic assistance of Maddi Giannotta from University of Adelaide and Nadia Meakin. Together, they targeted native bees, parasitoid wasps and other important pollinators with great success. “The trip was beautiful, breathtaking and unforgettable, with the marvels of the arid zone blowing us away.”

A short respite was taken in Alice Springs for the AES Conference where old friends were reunited, new friends were made, and diverse ideas were shared. A big congratulations to Ben Parslow for winning the Council of Heads of Australian Entomological Collections Speaker Prize for his fantastic talk about his project on Australian Gasteruption wasps. Also, congratulations to James Dorey and Olivia Davies for their awesome presentations (talk and poster, respectively).