Ivor Beatty Award 2023
The Ivor Beatty Award is presented annually to the best paper published in Pacific Conservation Biology during a calendar year. The award honours the contributions of the late Ivor Beatty, AM, to conservation in the Pacific region. Ivor’s family business Surrey Beatty and Sons published numerous books on natural history and conservation between 1981 and early this century, many of which have had a significant scientific impact. He founded Pacific Conservation Biology in 1992. Surrey Beatty and Sons continued the journal until the end of 2014, with the family maintaining Ivor’s legacy and vision after his passing in 2012. However, recognising the difficulty of meeting the increasing services expected by authors in recent times, they transferred the journal to CSIRO Publishing from 2015. The Ivor Beatty Award recognises and celebrates this legacy.
The Ivor Beatty Award for 2023 is presented to the paper:
Prendergast KS, Dixon KW, Bateman PW (2023) The evidence for and against competition between the European honeybee and Australian native bees. Pacific Conservation Biology29, 89–109. doi:10.1071/PC21064
Kit Prendergast is extremely grateful for the Ivor Beatty Award. She is a native bee scientist, with expertise in ecological interactions of native bees, their taxonomy, and conservation. Dr. Prendergast undertook her PhD research at Curtin University as a Forrest Research Foundation Scholar, and is a Curtin Alumni Young Achievement Award recipient. She currently is a postdoctoral researcher on pollination at University of Southern Queensland, as well as an ecological consultant specialising in native bee biodiversity conservation.
The paper was produced with co-authors Kingsley Dixon and Philip Bateman. Professor Kingsley Dixon is a John Curtin Distinguished Professor at Curtin University and Professor at The University of Western Australia. His research has been funded by 44 industry partners, representing $24M of research funding in the past decade. He has also secured nationally competitive funding of $7.6M, creating the International Network for Seed-based Restoration and foundation Chair of the Society for Ecological Restoration Australasia, and was the founding Director of Science at Kings Park and Botanic Gardens. Professor Dixon has won numerous awards including WA Scientist of the Year (2016) and Officer of the Order of Australia (2023). Associate Professor Bill Bateman is an ecologist who works primarily on wildlife, but also pollination, eDNA, and urban ecology. He has lived and worked in Europe, USA, Africa and Australia where he is an Associate Professor at Curtin University.
This research was inspired by the focus of Kit Prendergast’s PhD research at Curtin University where she was investigating the impacts of the European honeybee on native bees and pollination networks in the urbanised region of the south-west Western Australia (SWWA) biodiversity hotspot. Kit and her colleagues soon realised this was a very controversial topic, and there were many heated opinions. Given the significant economic and public interest in the European honeybee, alongside growing recognition of the incredible biodiversity of native bees and their vulnerability to introduced species, it was crucial to provide a thorough, systematic review of the evidence. This included identifying potential biases, key knowledge gaps, and offering recommendations for future research, as well as setting priorities to preserve the integrity of native plant-pollinator networks in Australia and protect Indigenous native bee biodiversity from this potential threat.
The Ivor Beatty Award is judged by the Editor-in-Chief Dr Mike Calver, and the Managing Editors Dr Alan Lymbery and Dr Mike van Keulen. On awarding the Ivor Beatty Award to the paper by Dr. Prendergast, Editor-in-Chief Mike Calver commented, ‘The European honeybee is such an important pollinator in horticulture that its potential as a competitor for Australian native bees may be overlooked. This critical review of the evidence for such competition is valuable as much for the knowledge gaps highlighted as for the evidence found of associations between honeybees and native bees.’
In recognition of the award, Dr. Prendergast will receive a $500 book voucher from the publisher, a certificate and will receive a subscription to Pacific Conservation Biology. The staff at CSIRO Publishing and the editorial board join the Managing Editors and the Editor-in-Chief in congratulating the authors on their achievement.
