| Key Achievements |
2014/15 (planned) |
2014/15 (actual) |
| Beating weeds – Outcomes 1 and 4 |
$1.03 |
$1.13 |
- Demonstrated that quantitative laboratory testing data can help predict risk of non-target attack, which will help ensure fewer environmentally safe candidate biocontrol agents are erroneously rejected.
- Showed that poor performance of heather beetle as a biocontrol agent in New Zealand is due in part to genetic bottlenecking, resulting in small body size. Small beetles have proportionally less lipid and lower winter survival. Large UK beetles are being used to genetically rescue the New Zealand populations.
- Set up monitoring plots to measure the impacts of the Tradescantia beetles, which are now causing impressive levels of damage to the target weed at several sites in the North Island.
- Completed a quantitative analysis of rearing challenges with weed biocontrol agents and demonstrated links to taxonomic groups and feeding guild. This helped lead to breakthroughs in rearing agents such as the Honshu white admiral butterfly, the barberry weevil and field horsetail sawflies.
|
| Strategic pest control – Outcomes 1 and 4 |
$0.11 |
$0.20 |
- Developed testing capability for milk powder contamination with 1080 to MPI, New Zealand Police, Auckland DHB and ESR.
- Developed and tested electronically-triggered 'drop off' radio collars for possums, enabling essential research for achieving TB eradication.
- Established the bioinformatics capability necessary for genome mining for species specific toxin development.
|
| Invasive mammal impacts on biodiversity – Outcomes 1 and 4 |
$1.27 |
$1.24 |
- Designed a monitoring programme, now implemented by Hawkes Bay Regional Council, to measure biodiversity outcomes of broad scale predator control in the Cape-to-City initiative, and designed a survey rolled out by HBRC to quantify landholder participation in the initiative.
- Set a clear threshold for predicting areas requiring pest control during the 2014 mega-mast, using a model relating summer temperatures to post-mast outbreaks of rodents in beech forest. DOC used our forecast to support a massive boost in pre-emptive control, costing $21 million, in the ‘Battle for Our Birds’ campaign.
- Motivated DOC managers to target rapid reinvasion by rodents across treatment boundaries using an analysis of intensive multi-species pest control in broadleaf forest.
- Provided pest managers (DOC, regional councils, community initiatives) with guidelines for pest management, based on our synthesis of known relationships between vertebrate pest abundance and the damaging impacts of invasive mammals on native biodiversity.
|
| Preventing and managing disease impacts – Outcome 1 |
$0.10 |
$0.13 |
- Worked to prevent and manage disease impacts by:
- identifying likely causes of diseases impacting kakapo and penguins, using new metagenomic capability;
- developing a device for school children to survey streams for kauri dieback, now being used in an Unlocking Curious Minds project;
- developing a model predicting the response of avian malaria mosquito vectors to climate.
|
| Invasive species – Outcomes 1 and 4 |
$0.16 |
$0.16 |
- Collaborative research with Australia’s Invasive Animals Cooperative Research Centre that included:
- Identifying the benign rabbit calicivirus that is interfering with RHD impact in New Zealand;
- integrating mouse modelling into an outbreak forecast system where landowners provide information through a mobile app;
- providing 'proof of freedom' recommendations for pest bird management activities.
|
| Invasive invertebrates – Outcomes 1 and 4 |
$0.13 |
$0.24 |
- Demonstrated confidence in the eradication of Argentine ants from Kawau Island, using spatial 'proof of freedom' modelling.
- Demonstrated that wasp nests infested with a newly discovered mite are 50–70% smaller than uninfested nests.
- Developed techniques for the captive rearing of wasps that will aid the New Zealand’s Biological Heritage Challenge.
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