Researchers in Western Australia have confirmed that a species of blowfly is as good at pollination as bees.
Key points:
- A species of blowfly has been shown to be as effective as bees at pollination
- Further research is underway on the commercialization and private deployment of the use of flies as managed pollinators.
- Researchers say relying on just one species for crop pollination is too risky
Since the Varroa mite outbreak in New South Wales, the threat of loss of bee populations has become even greater for beekeepers and farmers.
Scientists from the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development (DPIRD) have been carrying out this research since 2019 as part of a national project funded by Hort Innovation.
The premise of the trials was that the industry feared it was relying on just one species of pollinator – bees – according to DPIRD senior entomologist David Cook.
“Accidental” pollinators
Mr Cook says that because blowflies have hairy legs, they pick up pollen almost by accident.
In some cases, native flies stayed on a flower for an average of 30 seconds, transferring pollen between flowers.
Blowflies can operate in slightly lower temperatures than bees, which is an added advantage of this insect as a pollinator, especially in colder avocado-growing regions such as southern Western Australia and the Tasmania.
The other benefit of blowflies is that they don’t sting you like bees do, so managing them can be – literally – less painful.
Of course, blowflies lack the added benefit of the sweet by-product that bees make – honey – which presents a challenge to making fly pollinators economically viable.
Contain the flies
A major advantage of having bees as pollinators is that they live in hives, so they can be quite easily controlled and moved around if necessary.
This is one of the biggest challenges in commercializing blow flies as managed pollinators in crops and orchards.
However, researchers have found that the size of the fly can be bioengineered to be smaller than usual, to prevent it from flying too far from a crop.
Adult flies can also be neutered to prevent them from reproducing or becoming overcrowded.
“The flies we use are not the kind that are harmful to humans or livestock,” Cook said.
“We can also deploy decoys that give off a scent that flies like – a [humans] cannot detect.”
Flies are able to detect decaying proteins at a distance of 1 to 1.5 kilometers.
This means that the odor released can not only help trap flies in an orchard, but also attract flies to nearby native vegetation.
The deployment
Realistically, the rollout of the commercialization of fly populations as managed pollinators is still a few years away.
But Mr. Cook is confident in the progress of this research.
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