Scott Johnson
PLANT-INSECT INTERACTIONS
RESEARCH OVERVIEW
Our research looks to identify novel approaches for managing pest species and preserving ecosystem services, based on a better understanding of how organisms within ecosystems interact. This includes exploiting plant defences such as silicon, chemical signals used by insects to locate resources, enhancing biological control and using plant-microbes to help plants resist herbivore attack.
We principally work on root-feeding and sap-sucking (e.g. aphid) herbivores, but within a community level context.
A major theme of this research involves understanding how atmospheric and climate change affects insect herbivores, especially in terms of ecosystem resilience, resistance breakdown in crops and disruption of behavioural interactions (e.g. predator-prey interactions, insect mutualisms).
‘By characterising multi-trophic interactions, particularly in response to global change, we identify vulnerabilities in ecosystems, but more crucially where resilience and the opportunities for adaptation lie’
CURRENT and RECENT GRANTS
Are we really heading for ‘insectageddon’? Characterising changes in Eucalypt invertebrate communities under rising CO2
Chief Investigator: Scott N. Johnson
Funding Agency: The Hermon Slade Foundation
Period: 2019-2022
Time to prime: using silicon to activate grass resistance under higher CO2
Chief Investigators: Scott N. Johnson
Funding Agency: ARC Future Fellowship (FT170100342)
Period: 2017-2021
Down to earth defence: unlocking soil-derived defences for plant protection
Chief Investigators: Scott N. Johnson & David T. Tissue
Partner Investigators: Susan E. Hartley
Funding Agency: ARC Discovery (DP170102278)
Period: 2017-2020
Get tough, get toxic and get a bodyguard: Using silicon to augment direct and indirect anti-herbivore defences in cereals.
Chief Investigator: Scott N. Johnson
Partner Investigators: Australian Steel Mill Services
Funding Agency: WSU Industry Partnership
Period: 2016-17
Exploiting soil microbe associations with sugarcane roots for resistance to canegrubs.
Chief Investigators: Scott N. Johnson & Jeff R. Powell
Partner Investigators: Peter G. Allsopp & Nader Sallam,
Funding Agency: Sugar Research Australia
Period: 2014-17
Get tough, get toxic or get a bodyguard: how root herbivores shape grass defences
Chief Investigators: Scott N. Johnson & Ben D. Moore
Funding Agency: ARC Discovery (DP140100363)
Period: 2014-17
Drought, deluge and diversity decline - how do root herbivores affect grassland resilience to predicted changes in rainfall patterns?
Chief Investigators: Sally A. Power & Scott N. Johnson
Funding Agency: The Hermon Slade Foundation
Period: 2013-16
