Access disruptions on roads following a disaster can cause significant social and economic losses. Risk informed infrastructure investment is critical to ensure the construction and maintenance of resilient road networks.

Plants tell time. Not the way we do – for example, it’s 3.40pm, time to pick up the kids. But like animals, plants can sense that winter is coming and it’s time to drop leaves.

A sunflower anticipates daybreak, much like a rooster does before starting to crow. At sunrise, sunflowers face east to greet the first rays and continue to move with the sun until it sets in the west. Overnight, the sunflower head swings back around so it faces east at dawn.

Dr Mike Haydon, a University of Melbourne plant scientist, says sunflowers only move until the flower bud opens. At that point they stop their daily dance and permanently face east. “This is where the controversy arises,’’ says Dr Haydon, from the School of BioSciences. “People say ‘my sunflowers don’t track the sun’. Well if they’re open sunflowers, then they don’t do that because that’s when they’ve stopped.”

Shaped like a shield, sap-sucking stink bugs are brown, green or mottled. They feed on a wide variety of edible plants, including various fruit trees and some ornamentals. Fruits become puckered, scarred and distorted as a result of the feeding. The eggs are light red to yellow-red and are found on the undersides of leaves. Read more about controlling stink bugs.

Somewhat flat in shape, squash bugs are dark brown or black and congregate at the base of plants or under dead foliage. They have piercing mouthparts that suck plant sap, causing yellow spots on leaves that will often later wilt, blacken, die and fall off. The eggs are long and yellow in color. Read more about controlling squash bugs.

Flying or jumping when disturbed, these small, thin, wedge-shaped insects come in shades of green, brown and yellow, depending on the species. Leafhoppers feed on a variety of edible and ornamental plants and cause leaves to lose color, turn brown and become stippled. They also leave behind black excrement. Read more about controlling leafhoppers.

Notorious for skeletonizing leaves of a wide variety of edible and ornamental plants, Japanese beetles have iridescent copper wings and a metallic-green thorax and head. Underneath they have small tufts of white hairs along the sides of their abdomens. The slightly curved, lawn-damaging larvae, also known as grubs, are gray-white with brown heads. Read more about  controlling Japanese beetles.

Named appropriately, flea beetles are tiny green or black beetles that jump like common fleas. They attack a wide range of plants, including fruits, vegetables and ornamentals. Adult flea beetles create pinholes in leaves. Read more about controlling flea beetles.

Distinctive 1/2-inch-long yellow insects, Colorado potato beetles feature black, brown and yellow stripes on their wing covers. They gobble up and skeletonize the foliage on plants in the nightshade family, including potatoes, eggplant, peppers and tomatoes. Female beetles lay clusters of bright yellow-orange eggs on the undersides of the leaves. Hump-backed larvae hatch from these eggs and molt several times during feeding, growing fatter each time. Read more about controlling Colorado potato beetles.

Green, hairy cabbageworms have a velvety appearance and a row of light spots along their backs. These voracious feeders eat vegetable plant leaves, creating large, irregular holes, often along the midrib. When feeding on cabbage, these worms bore directly into the head. Their excrement consists of greenish-brown pellets. After two to three weeks of feeding, the wormlike larvae pupate and attach themselves to stems by a silk thread. The adult form, the imported cabbageworm butterfly, is easy to spot. It's white, with one to four black spots on its wings. Read more about controlling cabbage worms.

Several species of this sap-sucking, winged pest exist. You'll find aphids in green, black, yellow or red. They attack edible and ornamental plants, including garden roses, causing stunted growth, curling and yellowing leaves, and a honeydew buildup that leads to black, sooty mold. Honeydew produced by aphids attracts ants as well, so include them in your treatment plan. Read more about controlling aphids.