Roadside investigations of psyllids, ants and eucs

I was driving down a country highway on the 25th of October, in the late afternoon sun. One of the better things to do when driving is a bit of drive-by botany. Honestly it's hard to ignore for me. I couldn't help but notice that all the new River Red Gums recruits appeared to be dead or dying. When I use the term 'recruits', its a shortening for the word 'recruitment'. And recruitment in this context is the process by which new individuals of a particular plant species are added to an existing population. In my case this was the collective group of young River Red Gums Eucalyptus camaldulensis, the seedlings/saplings and immature trees. All of which self-seeded and surrounded the older parent tree. There can even be a 'recruitment cohort', where all the recruits are of a similar age to one another. In some species recruitment is a continuous process, with new recruits germinating every spring. Some will survive and others will perish. In other species recruitment can be episodic,…

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