Biosecurity is critical to New Zealand’s national security, economy and way of life

Stone, Matthew D.

doi:10.1080/00480169.2021.1965076

Cited by 5 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 10 publications

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“…Over 90% of insect species found in NZ can only be found in this country (Gibbs, 2007), making NZ's level of endemism one of the highest in the world (Brockie, 2007). As a result, NZ has one of the most complex biosecurity systems internationally, in order to protect the economy, human and environmental health, and especially to protect the country's taonga (treasure) species and natural heritage (Stone, 2021). Such imperatives are reflected in the country's expenditure on pest prevention and management, where reportedly NZD 1.5 billion was spent in 2020 on pest management and preventing biosecurity incursions (MPI, 2021).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Complexities of care in insect‐human relations

Yee

Sharp

2023

N Z Geog

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What ethico‐politics are we complicit in when we eat insects? Or produce them for feed? In this article we think through underexplored ideas of human‐insect response‐abilities, or ‘care’ in the acts of ‘producing’ insects that are to be: eaten by humans or non‐humans; or, enrolled in eating other species for environmental ‘management’. Rather than merely passive recipients of human care, we think through insect agency to highlight the affective capacities of insects in acts of human to more‐than‐human reciprocal care. Drawing on a qualitative study of diverse insect‐work in Aotearoa New Zealand, we demonstrate how insects are recognised as active in their caregiving processes, and what this might mean for our right relations with insects.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Complexities of care in insect‐human relations

Yee

Sharp

2023

N Z Geog

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“…NZ is currently free from many of the plant and animal viruses which compromise production and export value. In a country whose economy is so tightly linked to primary production, employing effective biosecurity measures to maintain this state is greatly desired amongst growers and exporters [ 3 ]. Safeguarding these industries is therefore a top priority for the Ministry for Primary Industries, to maintain and expand the productivity of NZ.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Development and Validation of a Bioinformatic Workflow for the Rapid Detection of Viruses in Biosecurity

Waite

Liefting

Delmiglio

et al. 2022

Viruses

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The field of biosecurity has greatly benefited from the widespread adoption of high-throughput sequencing technologies, for its ability to deeply query plant and animal samples for pathogens for which no tests exist. However, the bioinformatics analysis tools designed for rapid analysis of these sequencing datasets are not developed with this application in mind, limiting the ability of diagnosticians to standardise their workflows using published tool kits. We sought to assess previously published bioinformatic tools for their ability to identify plant- and animal-infecting viruses while distinguishing from the host genetic material. We discovered that many of the current generation of virus-detection pipelines are not adequate for this task, being outperformed by more generic classification tools. We created synthetic MinION and HiSeq libraries simulating plant and animal infections of economically important viruses and assessed a series of tools for their suitability for rapid and accurate detection of infection, and further tested the top performing tools against the VIROMOCK Challenge dataset to ensure that our findings were reproducible when compared with international standards. Our work demonstrated that several methods provide sensitive and specific detection of agriculturally important viruses in a timely manner and provides a key piece of ground truthing for method development in this space.

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“…But its use is still very limited to biosecurity social campaigns (e.g. check, clean, dry campaign; Miskell, 2021) and/or towards pre-emptive pest risk analysis of animal diseases and outbreaks (Stone, 2021). Unlike human and animal diseases, the effects of plant pests are usually recognized after a significant spread with visible damage in large areas of crops and trees.Early detection and surveillance of plant pests of biosecurity risk are largely dependent on trapping and in-person inspections, which are labour intensive and expensive.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Tracking potential biosecurity incursions using publicly available images: A case of coconut rhinoceros beetle

Paudel

Jackson

2023

J Applied Entomology

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The coconut rhinoceros beetle, Oryctes rhinoceros (L.), (CRB) is a major pest of coconut and oil palms that causes significant damage in the Asia/Pacific region. Traditional methods for surveillance and detection of CRB involve in‐person inspections, but these are expensive to carry out and were made impossible by travel restrictions during the COVID‐19 pandemic. In this paper, a method to remotely detect possible CRB incursions and assess damage levels using publicly available images is described. The method involves searching for pictures of palms and identifying those with the distinctive V‐shaped cuts in fronds characteristic of CRB feeding. The method was validated by examining palm images from known outbreak areas and those free from the pest. We found evidence of CRB damage in the previously unreported site of Dili, Timor Leste and possible evidence of CRB in the Solomon Islands even before it was first reported in 2015. Potential limitations and broader applications of this approach are also discussed.

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Biosecurity is critical to New Zealand’s national security, economy and way of life

Cited by 5 publications

References 10 publications

Complexities of care in insect‐human relations

Complexities of care in insect‐human relations

Development and Validation of a Bioinformatic Workflow for the Rapid Detection of Viruses in Biosecurity

Tracking potential biosecurity incursions using publicly available images: A case of coconut rhinoceros beetle

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