Thursday, March 28, 2024

App detects and predicts pests

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Predicting which pests are most likely to make New Zealand their next home and when they might arrive has been a key driver for researchers building technology to foresee incursions. Richard Rennie spoke to Scion post-doctoral fellow Rebecca Turner on her work combining mathematical modelling with insect incursion data to stay one step ahead of our next biosecurity headache.
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In a world first New Zealand is setting a new standard in biosecurity detection methods by combining mathematical modelling with real time insect interception data, all linked into a smart phone app to enable all New Zealanders to become biosecurity officers.

Funding for the project is coming from the Biological Heritage National Science Challenge, regional councils, Biosecurity NZ and the forestry and kiwifruit industries.

Scion post-doctoral fellow Rebecca Turner’s work is founded on clearly defining the three levels of biosecurity threat invading insects pose from an interception to an incursion to the worst case of pest establishment.

“An interception may be when a pest is detected in a shipment, as we had last year, with marmorated stink bugs on ships with imported cars destined for NZ but the ships were turned away before they arrived.”

An incursion is when a pest makes landfall but might not necessarily establish. 

Establishment describes a pest that has made NZ home, reproducing and multiplying in conditions favourable to its population. 

Since the early 1900s the country has become home for about 1500 new insects, some which are pests, with detection rates varying year by year. 

With the three data types collected the information becomes the raw input for modelling to predict the likelihood of future threats from specific pests.

The beta stage of a smartphone app aims to link sightings, data and modelled predictions together and is in trial use with the kiwifruit and forestry sectors.

“The app is loaded with the pests specific to that sector. 

“But if you were to see something you were not certain about you can take a photo and upload it to the app.” 

It is then scrutinised by industry specialists and citizen scientists with strong naturalist skills.

“They can determine what it is and how much of a threat it is and elevate any threat to Biosecurity NZ officials.”

The citizen scientist group iNaturalist NZ has been active for 10 years and is demonstrating a resounding strike rate in evaluating pests.

“Over that 10 years they have identified almost 400 of the 1500 established new insects. Every month they detect a few more.”

The work includes using overseas data, particularly from the United States with its long history of biosecurity data collection and it is exhibiting useful correlations with pest appearances in NZ.

“There is a slight difference in the composition of the trade sources between countries but, overall, the insects arriving are similar.”

One example are bark beetle pests that keep foresters awake at night with their ability to kill otherwise healthy pine trees. Some species are considered the most serious insect pests to conifer forests in the northern hemisphere.

The researchers have found their arrival in NZ is positively correlated with the numbers arriving in the US. 

To help the accuracy of the modelling the researchers are also combining non-pest sources, including climate data.

“While a pest may be detected as an interception there is no guarantee that it will become established if the climatic conditions are not suitable. Having that data included enables us to estimate a probability for its establishment.”

In future the predictive ability could also help determine the likelihood of pests in northern provinces of NZ spreading south as conditions become more hospitable within NZ borders.

The wider application of the work clearly excites Turner and her colleagues, with applications of the app extending to helping identify diseases and conditions alongside invertebrate pests.

Turner also works with Canterbury University’s mathematics department and was seconded in the early stages of the Mycoplasma bovis outbreak to bring a quantitative data perspective to the outbreak’s analysis.

Scion has already developed a myrtle rust reporter app as part of a BioHeritage Challenge project.

One of the researchers ultimate goals is to make the general reporter app available to the public later this year. 

In that respect it fits with the Government’s Ko Tatou-This is Us campaign, aimed to encourage all New Zealanders to take responsibility for helping protect NZ from pests and diseases.

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