Insects pollinate 75% of all agricultural crops, yet many face extinction. Discover how a ‘Star Trek’ level tech called eDNA can help monitor vital insect pollinators and support global food security.
Insects pollinate 75% of all agricultural crops, yet many face extinction. Discover how a ‘Star Trek’ level tech called eDNA can monitor vital insect pollinators and support global food security.
Associate Professor Paul Nevill
Paul leads the Minesite Biomonitoring with eDNA (MBioMe) research group at Curtin University. He is a molecular ecologist working on everything from soil microbes to mammals. His main interest is eDNA-based monitoring of biodiversity.
Dr Joshua Kestel
Joshua is a molecular ecologist interested in pollination and the resulting genetic consequences. He has undertaken research with the Minesite Biomonitoring with eDNA (MBioMe) research group at Curtin University, and the Department of Conservation, Biodiversity and Attractions (DBCA). He is now working at Cambridge University to further his research detecting pollinators using eDNA.
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Email thefutureof@curtin.edu.au
Host: David Karsten
Producer: Emilia Jolakoska
Episode researcher:Zoe Taylor
Executive producers: Anita Shore and Matthew Sykes
Curtin University acknowledges all First Nations of this place we call Australia and the First Nations peoples connected with our global campuses. We are committed to working in partnership with all Custodians and Owners to strengthen and embed First Nations’ voices and perspectives in our decision-making, now and into the future.
00:00:00:03 - 00:00:09:03
Sarah Taillier
This is The Future Of where experts share their vision of the future, and how they work is helping shape it for the better.
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David Karsten
I'm David Karsten. Insects are vital to healthy natural and agricultural systems. They pollinate many of the plants that humans and animals eat. Services that ensure adequate plant pollination add more than $2.6 billion to Australia's economy. But insect pollinators are under threat by rapid climate change, habitat loss, pesticides and emerging pests and pathogens. With me today to explore this topic is Associate Professor Paul Nevill and Doctor Joshua Kestel.
00:00:39:13 - 00:01:15:03
David Karsten
Paul leads the eDNA Minesite Biomonitoring Research Group at Curtin University. Joshua is a Curtin PhD graduate and researcher at Cambridge University, where he is examining insect pollinators using eDNA. Joshua and Paul have found that eDNA, or environmental DNA, is a powerful tool that can accurately detect insect species’ interactions with flowers. This technology can play a crucial role in sustaining important insect mediated ecosystem services like pollination, and in turn, the food and nature systems on which we rely.
00:01:15:05 - 00:01:29:14
David Karsten
If you'd like to find out more about this research, you can visit the links provided in the show notes. Paul, apparently, 40% of all insect species could be at risk of extinction. How did we get here?
00:01:29:16 - 00:01:56:19
Paul Nevill
Yeah, it's a really good question, David. There's four main causes for the loss of insect diversity in abundance and biomass across the globe. First one, pesticide usage associated with intensive agriculture. Secondly, pests like Varroa mite, which you've probably heard about, that affects bees, wild bees, and also pathogens; also changing climate. But the really big one is, is habitat loss.
00:01:56:21 - 00:02:01:12
Paul Nevill
You know, through increasing urbanisation and clearing of land for agriculture.
00:02:01:14 - 00:02:05:19
David Karsten
What are the implications of that bigger loss within, I guess, our ecosystems?
00:02:05:21 - 00:02:37:09
Paul Nevill
The implications are absolutely huge. If we just look at some of the services that insects provide, pollination, that 85% of wildflowering plants are insect pollinated and 75% of agricultural crops. Insects also perform pest control services. Dragonflies eat mosquitoes, for example. Decomposition – without beetles we wouldn't have nutrient cycling. And food, it's not just to tourists in Khoan San road that eat insects.
00:02:37:14 - 00:02:59:16
Paul Nevill
It's all the animals. The birds and the the, mammals that you see out there that also rely on insects is a food source. So, yes, we should be super worried about, the loss of insect diversity and abundance. That's kind of like a Jenga. Everyone knows Jenga. That game, we stack up the the blocks, we can keep pulling out the blocks.
00:02:59:16 - 00:03:09:12
Paul Nevill
But, at some point we're going to pull out a block and there'll be catastrophic ecosystem collapse. And that's potentially the future if we keep losing our insects.
00:03:09:14 - 00:03:31:08
David Karsten
No, there's the problem, Paul. But, Josh, we're looking for solutions, aren't we? There we are. Tell us a little bit about your your research – eDNA meta barcoding apparently is a Star Trek level technology that can detect insect pollinators and pests. Now, what is eDNA metabarcoding for those of us who don't know.
00:03:31:10 - 00:03:52:07
Josh Kestel
Sure. So I think the thing is, is that obviously when we talk about Star Trek level, we think of Spock's tricorder, and Spock with his tricorder could obviously detect anything that was in the environment. And eDNA is not too dissimilar. Environmental DNA really is these trace amounts of DNA that are left in soil, in water, air, and even on plant material.
00:03:52:09 - 00:04:10:10
Josh Kestel
And using eDNA metabarcoding, we can actually amplify up these small little fragments, almost like forensics. And we can actually work out what organisms deposited that DNA. Now, what's nice is once upon a time, if you wanted to work out what had been, in a certain area, you had to wait and watch it. You to stand out there like David Attenborough and observe.
00:04:10:12 - 00:04:16:21
Josh Kestel
But these days, with environmental DNA, we can actually visit after the organisms been there. And then see what's been there.
00:04:16:23 - 00:04:27:07
David Karsten
So, I guess as part of research and, and and understanding an environment, you need to know what's there. And obviously, this is an just an exemplary tool for for achieving that. Yeah.
00:04:27:13 - 00:04:42:13
Josh Kestel
Completely. Completely. And I think the thing is, is that, you know, obviously when you're doing observations and monitoring, sometimes you want to detect 1 or 2 organisms, but because we can detect everything that's been in a certain area, we can actually detect entire communities, which is so much more powerful than just waiting there with one camera.
00:04:42:15 - 00:04:55:00
David Karsten
In terms of actually measuring loss. Is that a longitudinal, study that, that you're part of, in terms of figuring out how an insect community is, is actually depleting?
00:04:55:02 - 00:05:16:24
Josh Kestel
Well, it's not part of the research that we did during my PhD, but it's certainly a longer term goal of the work that we do in the trend lab is to actually incorporate more regular environmental DNA monitoring into a variety of systems. Agriculture is a really important one because it's not often looked at for biodiversity. You know, when we think of agriculture, we think of honeybees and we think of monocultures, and we think of systems that don't really have biodiversity.
00:05:17:01 - 00:05:37:15
Josh Kestel
But insects are intrinsic to these systems. They are part of pollination. They're part of predators. They're also pests that cause huge crop losses. And so by incorporating eDNA more regularly in agricultural monitoring, that's what we're actually interested in doing, these longitudinal studies that help us monitor losses over time to say our current agricultural practices actually sustainable.
00:05:37:17 - 00:05:45:23
David Karsten
Well, you've you've managed to, again, study, a specific species within agriculture just to test your theory. Tell us about, avocados.
00:05:46:02 - 00:06:20:05
Josh Kestel
Avocados. Well, obviously great on toast. But also, you know, when we were interested in doing this study, we were looking for a crop that was a really big producer in the state that relied on pollination. And avocados were a significant work, significant crop. And so we went down to Manjimup and Pemberton, and we were interested in actually using this technology to see if we could detect native pollinators from avocado flowers and then also work out what native plants these pollinators relied on to see if we could show the importance of remnant vegetation to to sustainable agriculture.
00:06:20:07 - 00:06:36:18
Josh Kestel
And what was interesting is this research evolved as we went. You know, we went there with one question, you know, can we detect native pollinators? But as we went there and started using this powerful technology, we worked out that we could actually detect a variety of things, not just pollinators, but pests, pests and predators that also interacted with these flowers.
00:06:36:20 - 00:06:43:16
Josh Kestel
And so suddenly the question became much bigger, which is, what's the entire community that's sustaining avocado orchards down in the southwest?
00:06:43:18 - 00:06:57:02
David Karsten
What I guess what conclusions are you drawing about? These these, I guess all of this, that this interrelated ecology that works together to, you know, for various results, such as an avocado crop and.
00:06:57:02 - 00:07:13:00
Josh Kestel
Totally so I think the thing is, is that, what was most interesting when we started this research is that we went in there kind of like, can we detect honey bees? You know, are honeybees even interested in avocados? But then we detected that hoverflies are actually a huge flower visitor of avocado trees in the southwest.
00:07:13:02 - 00:07:34:22
Josh Kestel
And other research across Australia has also shown that hoverflies do visit avocado flowers. But then on top of this, we found wasps and Calliphorids, which are blow flies. And so suddenly forming this much more, complex picture of actually flies having a much bigger role in avocado pollination than just, you know, the regular honey bees. And the research shows that honey bees are actually not that interested in avocado pollen.
00:07:35:02 - 00:07:53:19
Josh Kestel
They don't particularly like the pollen, they don’t love the nectar. And as a result, they’re somewhat reluctant pollinators. But you know, the flies species that are present in the southwest, were ferocious, with nectar and pollen on the avocado flowers and visiting, you know, we detected over 100 visits per hour for some of these species, especially the hoverflies, when they were there en masse.
00:07:53:19 - 00:08:15:13
Josh Kestel
And it just goes to show that there's actually a really diverse and rich community of native insects that are actually doing this job. And so, although agriculture has traditionally been built around bringing honeybees with us, you know, the colonialisation idea of, you know, we'll bring our ancestral pollinators with us, we're actually best to listen to the landscape and actually utilise what's there, because clearly, there's amazing insects that are doing the job, too.
00:08:15:13 - 00:08:21:17
Josh Kestel
And we need to actually enhance their presence rather than just, you know, bringing these old practices into the future.
00:08:21:22 - 00:08:34:13
David Karsten
I guess it just reinforces the importance of conservation of of habitat and habitat and, and remnant bushland. Yeah. That must be such a, I guess a foundational thing, a foundational message that you're trying to get out there. Josh.
00:08:34:15 - 00:08:54:24
Josh Kestel
Oh, completely. And I think the thing is, is that, you know, some of our research, you know, we extended this because we were interested in looking at, you know, could we then detect what plant species these insects are actually interacting with? And we found that, you know, some species would travel out into adjacent bushland and actually harvest the flowers there and nectar and pollen and then come back into the avocado orchards.
00:08:55:01 - 00:09:16:03
Josh Kestel
And so it shows that far from, you know, this fence mentality, like an orchard finishes at the fence line. And after that there's something else. This ecosystem is connected across the landscape scale. And when we're actually looking at an orchard, we have to think about what other things are present. And native bushland is often looked at as this uncultivated land, you know, it's actually not utilized.
00:09:16:03 - 00:09:40:16
Josh Kestel
It's got potential, but we could plant it out. So what should we do with it? But I think what you know, the the like you mentioned, the foundational message of this research is, is that the presence of native bushland is actually fundamental to sustainable agriculture, because it's those areas that actually make agriculture work. You know, unfortunately, in places like California where they have massive avocado plantations, they have no remnant bushland anymore.
00:09:40:17 - 00:10:01:12
Josh Kestel
And what happens is, although they've got ideal conditions for pollination, avocado trees flowering, there's no pollinators. And so you've got to bring honeybees in and there's this huge investment. But you know, from the research that we've done, we actually go that these areas of bushland are just so diverse and they hold so much of, so much of the insect abundance present in the landscape.
00:10:01:14 - 00:10:06:20
Josh Kestel
If we don't harness those and we don't protect them, we're actually doing ourselves a disservice.
00:10:06:22 - 00:10:22:03
David Karsten
One of the ironies of, of the research that that you've presented tosses is the very, the very fact that the European honeybees that were brought over to do a job actually prefer, as you say, the native bushland, they're the ones that travel the most.
00:10:22:05 - 00:10:22:12
Josh Kestel
Yes.
00:10:22:16 - 00:10:24:01
David Karsten
To get away from us.
00:10:24:03 - 00:10:46:09
Josh Kestel
Right. And I think that's the thing is you've got to think about honeybees, that they're efficient, they know their job. You know, they are absolutely, you know, amazing at sniffing out the best resources and then visiting them preferentially to avocado trees. And often when I talk to, you know, farmers down in the southwest, they would say, oh, you know, the second, eucalypt is over there flowering, the honeybees will just leave the orchard.
00:10:46:09 - 00:11:03:15
Josh Kestel
You know, I've got 10,000 avocado trees surrounding this one hive, and they completely go past them because they interested in, you know, native eucalypts nearby. And it just goes to show that, you know, honeybees that will travel big distances and they can avoid, you know, resources that they don't want to have to pollinate, which would be avocados in this case.
00:11:03:17 - 00:11:20:24
Josh Kestel
And so, you know, by utilising other insects that are actually interested in avocados, like, you know, the fly species that we mentioned earlier, there's this this is untapped potential that, you know, we haven't really looked at in that way. But, you know, by utilizing flies in this way, and some work by deeper with David Cook has also found similar things.
00:11:21:01 - 00:11:39:07
Josh Kestel
You know, they can be vastly improved pollinators for avocado trees, but also, they say local, you know, they they're not quite interested in traveling as far as honeybees. And maybe that's because they're not as efficient. In the longer run. But, you know, it just goes to show that there is a potential to use other species for a job that we've only kind of had a one-track mind of, thus far.
00:11:39:09 - 00:11:47:10
David Karsten
But, Josh, it's not just about pollination for the avocados. These native insects are also serving, I guess a pest control function. Right?
00:11:47:16 - 00:12:07:02
Josh Kestel
Completely. And I think the thing is, is that, you know, we also detected, you know, wasps, species as well as, you know, other native insects that actually moderate the presence of these, you know, herbivorous insects that actually decimate crop productivity. And what's really interesting is that, you know, farmers at the moment, are left to rely upon their own personal observations.
00:12:07:02 - 00:12:25:07
Josh Kestel
They walk up to a tree and inspected for species like six spotted mite to see if it's present and if they do detect it, you know, then they'll undertake pesticide spraying for the entire orchard. Now that would be like one member of your family being sick and yet giving the whole family antibiotics. It it's overkill.
00:12:25:07 - 00:12:47:09
Josh Kestel
You know, we don't need to do it to that level. And environmental DNA of trees within an orchard actually allows us to get targeted pesticide spraying because we can work out which trees have this pathogen or this pest on it, and we can actually target those particular tree species for these applications, rather than spraying an entire orchard and harming predator diversity, which would actually benefit the orchard in the long run.
00:12:47:11 - 00:13:05:13
Paul Nevill
And add that we can not only pick up the insects, we can also detect fungal pathogens, for example, that are vectored by the insects. So that's really, really important. So we can use the insects as well, fungal pathogen sampler and incorporate it into an early warning system.
00:13:05:15 - 00:13:14:12
David Karsten
It's all this, I guess, understanding that you already have of these interrelationships. Right. That come into play in this instance.
00:13:14:14 - 00:13:58:24
Paul Nevill
Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I think some of Josh's work really emphasizes the importance of native vegetation as a, as a pump for these, insect species that perform pollination or, positive predatory roles on other insects. So, you know, farmers, you know, need to consider, maintaining native vegetation at their, at their orchards or supplementing it by planting, you know, wildflowers amongst the rows of the orchard just to provide that habitat for native insects and maintain that maintain diversity of native insects at the location, which then provides redundancy in the system if some of the introduced pollinators like honey bees disappear because of something like for varroa mite.
00:14:05:05 - 00:14:21:06
David Karsten
Paul, Josh's research has shown us a very pointed and very focused area in which Sydney has has really, opened up some new insights into pollinators. But what more broadly can Ian and I tell us?
00:14:21:08 - 00:14:48:07
Paul Nevill
Yeah, there's absolutely huge potential for eDNA. All organisms contain DNA so we can detect any species right across the tree of life. So we can look at everything from soil microbial communities to vertebrate species. And we can take a very targeted approach where we can look at specific species for a conservation outcome, where we, say, want to detect a cryptic or rare, arboreal species such as red-tailed phascogale in a jarrah forest.
00:14:48:13 - 00:15:12:24
Paul Nevill
So we can use DNA to complement traditional methods such as cameras to find that species. Or we can look at whole communities of organisms, which is a big focus of what we do. So we'll look at change or delta in in the community composition. So we can look at, for example, the response of of insect species to restoration.
00:15:12:24 - 00:15:35:13
Paul Nevill
So if we restore a mine site, do those insects come back? Okay. So we need them to come back to perform all the ecosystem services that they, you know, provide. So before that restoration, using a site is effectively restored, we need to be able to assess, biodiversity at that site. And we can do that with eDNA. We've also looking at freshwater systems and marine systems.
00:15:35:13 - 00:15:52:17
Paul Nevill
You can imagine marine, for example, that if you're working in the Kimberley, if you want to do fish surveys to look at the impact of a pipeline in the sea, you don't want to get in the water in the Kimberley or, you know, you'll end up being the meal of a crocodile. But we can use something like eDNA: take a litre of water, sequence that, and we'll be able to tell you all the fish species that are in that area, so incredibly powerful. It's a transformative and a disruptive approach that I think is just is just growing and growing in applications and particularly natural capital accounting and the nature positive market. I think eDNA will have a big role to play in that.
00:16:16:04 - 00:16:20:13
Paul Nevill
Along with remote sensing, providing data for corporates.
00:16:20:15 - 00:16:53:17
David Karsten
Hypothetically, Paul does add and I enable, I guess, a, I guess a provable quantitative measure by which you can, almost set KPIs, say, for a restoration project. I mean, can you, before a mine site exploration even takes place, can you, as part of the environmental, assessment of the area, go in, and, and use your Star Trek DNA tools to determine what's there and then do a comparison ten, 20 years down the track during the restoration is that progresses?
00:16:53:17 - 00:17:29:23
Paul Nevill
Yeah, that's exactly what I think the future holds. A company could invest in, generating that baseline data, on what's there as part of the environmental approval process. And then they can, you know, revisit sampling, sampling in the same way, using the same methods. As the project goes ahead. And then that closure of the project to look at that recovery of biodiversity over time and prove to government regulators that, you know, they have restored or or not brought in pest species, for example, to a location.
00:17:30:00 - 00:17:43:14
David Karsten
You mentioned before that, eDNA, right, is a complementary method to existing, techniques. In what ways is eDNA meta barcoding limited at all?
00:17:43:16 - 00:18:11:09
Paul Nevill
So like any monitoring method, it has limitations. So one of the just as an example, one of the issues that we're having at the moment is we have a project in Bangkok that we're looking at urbanisation impacts on bee diversity, native bee diversity in Bangkok. We're finding it very difficult to develop an assay – assays are like a molecular magnet to pull out the DNA sequences from the bees that we're interested in – because bees are incredibly diverse.
00:18:11:15 - 00:18:35:18
Paul Nevill
So it's very difficult to design an assay that's going to hit all bee species that are location. And also, you know, there could be something unique about the ecology of bees that they don't deposit much DNA when they interact with a flower. Some species may, some may not. So development of assays is, is, a tricky one.
00:18:35:20 - 00:18:54:06
Paul Nevill
Is a tricky issue. So you can get false negatives for species. So species may be present but you don't detect it through its DNA. So that's an issue. Abundance a lot of, ecologists or a lot of environmental impact assessment needs abundance data.
00:18:54:08 - 00:18:55:07
David Karsten
Not just presence.
00:18:55:07 - 00:19:20:20
Paul Nevill
Yeah. Not just presence or absence. So, eDNA is not particularly good at giving, providing abundance data, relative abundance perhaps in some situations. But that again is is also a bit of a limitation. But as I said, all monitoring methods have got limitations of use cameras for example, they don't pick up reptiles, they don't pick up small, small species.
00:19:20:20 - 00:19:36:16
Paul Nevill
So every every monitoring method has its issues. It's about understanding what the limitations of a method, comparing it to traditional or long-standing approaches. So you can just calibrate calibrate your you method.
00:19:36:18 - 00:19:52:21
David Karsten
Josh, your study is done and dusted. Your thesis is in. You've got the letters. What is next for that paper? Is it being put in front of the agricultural sector or is it, is it finding a home somewhere?
00:19:53:01 - 00:20:10:10
Josh Kestel
Yeah. Look, I think that's the most interesting thing because, you know, you develop a new method or you try a new approach and then it's like, what do we have here? And I think at the moment, you know, Steve Jobs has just walked onto the stage and he's held up this strange little black box. And he said, I want to announce that this is an iPhone and this is going to change your lives.
00:20:10:12 - 00:20:48:19
Josh Kestel
And I think the thing is, is that we're at that stage. We've got this iPhone, but what do we do with it? And I think the really the next thing for this paper and the next thing for this method in agriculture is actually to combine it with mechanisation. You know, agriculture is really good at making things vastly efficient with robotics and technology, but we now need to combine this mechanisation with environmental DNA and metabarcoding, collecting measures of biodiversity simply, as orchardists and farmers go about their everyday business, you know, having a tractor with an eDNA sampler on it, you know, collecting samples with some kind of, you know, collecting device that is
00:20:48:19 - 00:20:58:11
Josh Kestel
often used in agriculture as it presently stands. The thing is, is that, you know, when I did this study, I went out there with my family, you know, my grandad, he was out there helping me sample and.
00:20:58:13 - 00:20:59:01
David Karsten
On ya Grandad.
00:20:59:01 - 00:21:14:10
Josh Kestel
Grandad, hero and you know, we were collecting all these flowers manually. Now no farmer is going to do that, you know, when they're so busy. And so really the next step for this paper and the next step for this research is how do we combine it with currently used tools in agriculture to make it more accessible to the masses?
00:21:14:10 - 00:21:16:24
Josh Kestel
When we do that, biodiversity will become a regular measure.
00:21:17:03 - 00:21:39:14
Paul Nevill
And can can I just adding that we we had an on this project last year where we have developed a system to, attach a DNA sample to the side of a car. So any moving vehicle we could put a DNA sample onto. So if you're driving through, you know, farming area, you could put these DNA samples on a, on a, on a car or a header or something.
00:21:39:16 - 00:21:55:21
Paul Nevill
And you could pick up potentially, you know, pathogens that are new to that area or insects or whatever, that invasive insect species. So I think that is just on the horizon at the moment. And also there's a potential to get real time data with sequencing in the field.
00:21:55:23 - 00:22:07:21
David Karsten
There we go. Just problem solved. I'm glad we brought the two of you together today. Perfect. We did I think. What's next for you, Josh? What's, what what research you undertake undertaking now is it is an an extension of what you've been working on today.
00:22:07:24 - 00:22:26:16
Josh Kestel
Yeah. Look, it's a really interesting point because actually, you know, I was fortunate enough to get a fellowship to Cambridge University, and, I'm really excited to be actually heading north, and, I'll be doing sampling in not only Cambridge, but also South Africa. And I get the chance to look for native pollinators in the desert ecosystem.
00:22:26:16 - 00:22:32:06
Josh Kestel
So Curtin University is giving me this wonderful platform to actually get on the world stage and try something completely new.
00:22:32:08 - 00:22:37:08
David Karsten
And, Josh, you must be absolutely thrilled. That's such a a massive milestone. So early in your career.
00:22:37:09 - 00:22:53:00
Josh Kestel
Oh, it's, it was it was a bit of a breathtaking moment, you know, it happens to other people. And I think the other thing is, is that it really it felt like Willy Wonka's golden ticket, you know, like when I got that phone call, I. It really made me stop. You know, maybe there are a few moments in life we go, wow, like, my God.
00:22:53:00 - 00:23:00:05
Josh Kestel
And that one just it didn't feel real and and still sinking in, you know, I leave, I leave in March. And so it's going to be it's going to be a big life change. But I can't wait.
00:23:00:05 - 00:23:08:00
David Karsten
Wait. Congratulations. You're saying that it's fantastic. And a great outcome for the department as well. Paul, you must be pretty, pretty stoked with this outcome.
00:23:08:02 - 00:23:16:22
Paul Nevill
It's very exciting for Joshua. Very, very place for him. Planning to go and go visit him in, December.
00:23:16:24 - 00:23:17:11
Josh Kestel
Can be busy.
00:23:17:16 - 00:23:18:23
Paul Nevill
Yes.
00:23:19:00 - 00:23:38:08
David Karsten
Now, look, you're both at different stages of your career, just in terms of the timeline. I'd like to hear from both of you, starting with you. Josh, in terms of the, I guess the motivation for you to to enter this line of work at to to to launch this career, what was this always something that, that was as close to your heart as you were going through, I guess high school.
00:23:38:14 - 00:23:58:06
Josh Kestel
Yeah. Look, it's so interesting because in high school, you know, when they say pick your career, it's like, what does that mean? What will I like? I come from a family of accountants. So, you know, I wouldn't say passion is the main driver of many of our decisions. But for me, I looked at what I was good at in high school, and I was good at the one thing that no one liked, which was botany.
00:23:58:08 - 00:24:15:03
Josh Kestel
And, and then from there I remember volunteering at the herbarium and, the head of the herbarium at the time, I said to him, I'm doing I want to do botany, but what goes with it? And he says do genetics and I said, oh, genetics is gross. But I was like, if the head of a herbarium is saying it he probably knows a thing or two.
00:24:15:03 - 00:24:31:12
Josh Kestel
So that was university and I did botany and genetics as my undergraduate degree. And then I looked at native pollinators when I was at Kings Park. And I was like, that's really interesting. And then COVID hit. And then after that it was like, oh, you know what? What do you do? And then Paul offered me this amazing opportunity to come to Curtin.
00:24:31:12 - 00:24:38:02
Josh Kestel
And from there, it's how I, you know, evolved my passion for environmental DNA, and barcoding and looking at biodiversity more broadly.
00:24:38:04 - 00:24:53:08
David Karsten
You talk about an interest in botany that that came about as, as a young fella. But was it also underlying, all of that, a mission, a desire to, to, to change, implement change or something a little bit more lofty?
00:24:53:10 - 00:25:15:00
Josh Kestel
Of course. Look, I think, you know, for me, whenever I've talked to my family about it, it's a forest for me is the equivalent of a cathedral. There's something about when you're in these places. They, they're holy in a way. And I think that they're holy because they are representative of something that's untouched. And they are an area where it is just beautiful.
00:25:15:04 - 00:25:34:24
Josh Kestel
And that's so precious. And I think the thing is, is that we live in a society where it's so much easier to get caught up in an online momentum, you know, trends, Twitter feeds, and then Facebook. And I think the thing is, is it takes us away from these special, special places where, you know, these are what are biodiversity and what our world depends on.
00:25:34:24 - 00:25:37:15
Josh Kestel
And we can't get distracted from that.
00:25:37:17 - 00:25:48:02
David Karsten
Paul, how do you see your role these days? You know, from, from your early days in the field to now actually fostering, new talent to, to go out there and continue the change?
00:25:48:02 - 00:26:05:12
Paul Nevill
Yeah. I really enjoy it. I think it's one of the most pleasurable parts of my job. I haven't actually been in this career for very long. I was an air traffic controller for a number of years and and did economics and arts degrees way back and didn't even do science in high school and somehow became a geneticist.
00:26:05:12 - 00:26:16:21
Paul Nevill
But, yeah, it's great to see people like Josh and many other students that we interact with going on and following their dreams and, and doing good things for the globe.
00:26:16:23 - 00:26:27:09
David Karsten
Well, we'll pull you. You just, you know, whipped out some, I guess, amazing career facts on your own behalf. Was it a case of trying a few different things until you found genetics?
00:26:27:11 - 00:26:48:17
Paul Nevill
When I was 17, I didn't study. I didn't study science in high school at all. And, I wanted to do forestry, but couldn't because I didn't study science. And then. Yeah, just tried a few things, became an air traffic controller at a pretty young age. I think I was 20 or 21. Wow. And that's.
00:26:48:17 - 00:26:50:13
David Karsten
Pressure. That's a real pressure gig as well.
00:26:50:13 - 00:27:10:22
Paul Nevill
So yeah, it's kind of like a sausage factory, the sausages are the airplanes. And they come in and then they go out the other end and get packaged. But, yeah, I got sick of that very, very quickly and, and decided to go back into a forestry degree when I was early 30s and had three children and then did a PhD.
00:27:11:01 - 00:27:17:14
Paul Nevill
And by the end of that I had four children. And yeah, I've, I've never regretted it at all.
00:27:17:16 - 00:27:26:02
David Karsten
Yeah. I guess the, the potential for, I guess an acting change is that, is that a really important part of why you do what you do?
00:27:26:04 - 00:27:53:24
Paul Nevill
Absolutely. I think, you know, most of the people in our job are not motivated by salaries or, you know, other things, but, yeah, it's definitely that you can have a positive impact on, on biodiversity and, and in particular Perth's biodiversity. We live in an incredible location, we’re in a biodiversity hotspot in Australia. Yeah, it's a special place and we have to do as much as we can to protect it.
00:27:54:01 - 00:28:06:03
David Karsten
Well, you're both doing such great work and Josh, going from one biodiversity hotspot here in Perth to to South Africa, which is widely considered another. Yeah. You must be just glowing.
00:28:06:09 - 00:28:07:23
Josh Kestel
So thank you so much, David. Yeah.
00:28:08:01 - 00:28:11:01
David Karsten
Thanks for your time today. Both guys really appreciate you talking to us today.
00:28:11:05 - 00:28:11:20
Josh Kestel
Thanks.
00:28:11:22 - 00:28:12:16
Paul Nevill
Cheers.
00:28:12:18 - 00:28:26:02
Sarah Taillier
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