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Insects on Rader’s screen
Thrilled and shocked to have her research on alternative insects to bees recognised, Romina Rader claimed her reward at the Smart Women – Smart State Awards 2008 ceremony in Brisbane.
Romina is doing her PhD at the School of Marine and Tropical Biology, James Cook University Cairns Campus.
The awards recognise outstanding Queensland women achieving results in non-traditional areas such as science, engineering and information communication technology.
“This award is for my PhD work: I am looking at native insect pollinators in both natural and human modified ecosystems,” Romina said.
“I’m trying to see which insects carry pollen that might be useful to farmers in terms of their pollination services to crops so they don’t have to rely solely on the honey bee.”
Romina is also finding out which insects are found in what land uses so she can determine where the distribution of biodiversity is in the landscape. Her field sites are situated on the Atherton Tablelands so she often comes across an array of wildlife when she sets her insect traps.
“I’m always amazed to look in my traps and see how many different types of insects there are,” she said,
“It’s also cool looking at the many beautiful forms of pollen grains, they are like little sculptures when I look at them under the microscope.”
The downside of her research work includes ticks and scrub itch as well as having to sort through myriad insects and catalogue them.
“I collect insects on 24 properties so I work quite a bit with the farmers who own the properties and have a few trusted volunteers and experts helping out with sorting and identification,” Romina said.
In the third year of her project, Romina said it’s taken a lot of time and effort.
Collecting samples for one week every month and then for three weeks she sorts and prepares specimens for identification by expert taxonomists. Plus she has to apply for funding to pay for identifications, prepare loads of insects, examine pollen, prepare and enter data and analyse it.
Romina’s research is vital as bee populations across the globe are dying due to disease and climate change.
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