State-Of-The-Art Surveillance webinar

December 2021

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Surveillance is an essential part of protecting New Zealand’s economic assets and natural taonga from damaging exotic organisms. To strengthen our biosecurity system, researchers at BioHeritage are investigating two technologies to improve the early detection of new invaders. Dr Steve Pawson explains more:

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Insect Soup: sampling DNA with light traps
Our team is installing UV light traps at the Port of Tauranga to help detect the arrival of foreign insects. All of the insects caught will be analysed in the lab by a process called High-Throughput Sequencing (HTS). This will tell us the DNA of every insect species caught in the trap.  If a new insect species or a known threat comes into Tauranga, we know where and when it was collected, and we can take steps to eradicate it.

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Spectral imaging for urban tree health
Our researchers are trialling cameras mounted on moving vehicles to monitor the health of our urban rākau (trees). The camera will take pictures of street trees every fortnight. Images will be pre-processed to maintain people’s privacy (blurring cars, people, houses etc.) and then analysed by computer to identify what kind of trees each street has, and whether they look damaged by pests or diseases.