Unitec student leads research findings into honeybees as spreaders of myrtle rust in New Zealand

Twenty-two year old Unitec biodiversity student Luzie Schmid might be far from her hometown of Regensburg in Germany’s landlocked Bavaria region, but she has put her indelible mark on Aotearoa New Zealand with a recent scientific discovery close to the country’s heart.

Luzie, who’s a second-year student in the Bachelor of Applied Science programme at Unitec, has published her first research paper on the movement and harvesting of myrtle rust spores (Austropuccinia psidii), by honeybees, adding further evidence that they present a potentially serious vector in the spread of the rust throughout New Zealand.

Researching a real-world issue

Myrtle rust is a serious fungal disease that affects plants in the myrtle family, including New Zealand’s native pōhutukawa, mānuka, rātā and kānuka, as well as some common ornamental garden plants like bottlebrush and lilly pilly. Once established on a host tree or shrub, it destroys new growth and soft tissues, eventually killing the plant.

It has long been speculated that honey bees may be responsible for moving the yellow rust spores from plant to plant, but it hadn’t previously been observed and formally documented.

Together with staff from our School of Environmental and Animal Sciences (EAS), including Associate Professors Dr Peter de Lange and Dr Mark Large, as well as senior lecturer Mel Galbraith, Luzie investigated a copse of planted maire tawake trees near Te Wai Unuroa o Wairaka in West Auckland, and noted honey bees harvesting the yellow rust spores. The group carried out more detailed observations, and compiled their research into a paper for the Unitec ePress journal Perspectives in Biosecurity with Luzie as senior author.

It was Peter’s suggestion that Luzie became the senior writer on the paper.

“It was the best type of learning for an undergraduate student,” he said.

Throughout the process, Luzie learned how to collate and write up information, handle the feedback from the anonymous peer reviews and how to put a published scientific paper together.

Luzie said she feels a great sense of achievement at having the paper published.

“These things make me really proud,” she said. “My family always thought I’d follow my mother into social work, so they were quite surprised at what I’ve achieved.”

“I wanted to do something that was going to make a difference”

Luzie first came to New Zealand as a gap year student in 2018, and spent five months working in bars and cafes and travelling around the country.

She says she didn’t really consider doing a degree in Science at school, but when it came to making a decision knew she wanted to do something that was useful.

“Science and conservation makes me feel productive,” said Luzie.  “I wanted to do something that was going to make a difference.”

The Applied Science element of the courses on offer at Unitec appealed to Luzie, and she began her studies at the Mt Albert campus at the start of last year. The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the closure of borders around the world has meant Luzie hasn’t been able to return to Germany to see family and friends for nearly two years. But she says the Unitec whānau, including Head of School Dr Dan Blanchon and her course lecturer Dr Peter de Lange, have been incredibly supportive.

“Peter and Dan have definitely inspired me because of the way they teach and interact with people,” she said. “It’s also been fascinating to see how science works — seeing them do their fieldwork has inspired me.”

Luzie’s specialist interest lies in botany and taxonomy and she has volunteered for the past year at Unitec’s Herbarium, which has a focus on New Zealand’s lichens and is also the country’s youngest herbarium. Founded in 2001, it contains 13,600 preserved specimens, focusing on native and invasive plants and in particular lichens. Initially, Luzie worked on cataloguing the 500 New Zealand duplicate lichen collections gifted to the herbarium by international lichenologists Drs Robert Lücking and Bibiana Moncado.

Her tasks included updating the taxonomic arrangement of the Herbarium, checking specimen identifications and their mounting condition, and then refiling the collections.

She also had a summer internship researching karamu Coprosma leaf spot fungi.

Reorganising the herbarium vault and curating specimens was a huge job, but Luzie says the experience really helped cement her learnings and knowledge.

“Science suddenly made sense to me,” she said.

Applied science an integral part of teaching and learning in EAS

“Part of our ethos in the School is that all lecturers operate an open-door policy,” said Peter.  “We believe in our students, and mentoring and supporting them outside their comfort zone is a large part of what we do.

“It’s about teaching them to have faith and confidence in themselves.”

“More and more of our students are going on to do post-graduate qualifications, and we’re very proud of that,” Peter added.

“The applied component is an integral part of our teaching and learning in the School, and nurturing it is a key focus for us.”

“Luzie has great potential, like so many of our students. I feel that she’s well on her way to making her own discoveries and naming a species, which is the epitome for a taxonomist.”

Peter says he hopes through the publication of the paper that Plant and Food and Landcare Research will now be able to conduct further research into the spread of myrtle rust, and how it can be stopped.

“It’s all about awareness, and hopefully the paper will act as a catalyst for further investigations and research to build our understanding of myrtle rust, and identify possible tools, treatments, and future management options,” he said.

Luzie is now working with Peter on a taxonomic revision of kahikatoa/manuka (Leptospermum scoparium), due to be completed in 2022