Inaugural Distinguished Professorial Lecture

Inaugural Distinguished Professorial Lecture

In association with the Royal Society Te Apārangi, Philip Hulme FRSNZ, Distinguished Professor of Plant Biosecurity, will present the 2018 Leonard Cockayne lecture

Ornamental to detrimental: The invasion of New Zealand by non-native plants

Could invasive plants and non-native weeds choke our country? What are the tools to control these current and future flora threats?

New Zealand has more types of non-native plants than almost anywhere in the world. Leonard Cockayne believed that such non-natives would never pose a threat to our native flora. Yet today, many of these species pose significant economic and environmental costs yet all signs point to the problem growing in the future. Using our recent research as background I explore the history of plant invasions in New Zealand and examine the underlying causes and potential future trends. Some of these invasive plants have been introduced as commercial crops such as pine and pasture grasses, and some have come in as ornamentals from around the world. While new imports are screened at the border, New Zealand faces a threat from the 30,000 or so varieties already grown here in our gardens and sometimes it takes up to 100 years before the invaders jump the garden fence and become a problem. In this talk we’ll explore the many tools available to control future threats, looking at the role of botanic gardens in both the spread and management of invasive weeds and consider how both the government and public can be more effective in preventing and controlling the plant invaders.

Distinguished Professor Philip Hulme FRSNZ, Principal Investigator in the Bio-Protection Research Centre, holds the Chair in Plant Biosecurity at Lincoln University. He has been listed in the top 1% of all scientists worldwide in terms of his research impact in each of the past five years. His expertise lies in biological invasions and biosecurity and he is a member of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Invasive Species group.