A paper published in the journal Biological Control showed that leaf-feeding beetles may be one of South Africa’s most promising biocontrol agents for famine weed.
In November 2017, the Centre for Invasion Biology (C·I·B) hosted an international workshop on “Invasion Syndromes”. The aim of the workshop was to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of identifying invasion syndromes when studying and managing biological invasions.
The December 2017 edition of the journal Biological Invasions is a special issue devoted to papers from a conference on urban invasions that was hosted by the Centre for Invasion Biology (C•I•B) in November 2017.
A “mycorrhiza” is a relationship between a fungus and the roots of a plant. The fungus lives inside the plant roots, and increases the roots’ efficiency in absorbing nutrients from the soil. In such a relationship, both the plants and the fungi, are said to be mycorrhizal and this relationship between plant roots and its associated fungi (“mycorrhizal fungi”) is, amongst other things, important for plant growth.
A recent study by C.I.B PhD graduate Mathys Strydom (currently at the Academy of Environmental Leadership) found that annual seed input of invasive Australian Acacias is still high, despite the use of biological control agents.