Towards protecting people, primary industry and nature from pest wasps
On 13 September, insect ecologist Eric Edwards will join the Faculty of Health and Life Sciences seminar series to talk about the impact of invasive wasps in New Zealand and solutions for their control, focusing on protecting bees and other insects.
Wasps introduced to New Zealand from Europe cost at least SEK 850.000.000 per year, but this is nothing compared with the costs of personal loathing of wasps and their broader impacts on industries and nature.
In this seminar, Eric Edwards will take us through the journey of many researchers who are trying to suppress wasps at big scales with new technologies. Nature is intricate and learning more about how wasps live, their physiology, genes and behaviour could lead to using their own specific weaknesses against them without harming bees or other insects.
The seminar is open to the public and is held both on-site in room Ockra, building Culmen in Kalmar, and via Zoom at this link.
Eric Edwards has over 30 years’ experience as an insect ecologist, mostly with the Department of Conservation. With an interest in solving exotic pest issues, he began focusing on wasps in 2013. Since then, he has collaborated widely with research providers seeking new technologies for wasp control.