News

Where do mussels like to call home?

To find out what features of the reef attract mussels, we dropped baby green-lipped mussels on several types of 3D printed tiles representing rocky reef structures in seawater tanks and saw where they went. This experiment will help us designing eco-engineered structures that would give this native species a competitive advantage over invasive species on artificial structures.
Read more

Mapping nationwide movements of New Zealand’s recreational vessels

The MANAGE & RESPOND TEAM developed a web-based survey that uses interactive maps to capture the movement of recreational boats in New Zealand. The collected data will be used to create a network model of recreational vessel movements to understand places of particular importance for biosecurity pathway management and response.
Read more

The increasing issue of coastal hardening and its associated socio-economic risks

We mapped coastal hardening associated with 30 international urban centres and, using machine-learning algorithms, developed a model to forecast the regional expansion of 4 globally common coastal infrastructure types. We applied this model to New Zealand for anticipating regional distributions and future hotspots of socioecological risks over a 25-year period.
Read more

From North to South – scientists set sail for two collaborative expeditions

In 2021, the DETECT team had a big year on the water participating in two research expeditions, in two very distant and ecologically different areas of Aotearoa: Northland and Fiordland. These expeditions allowed us to collect valuable data on distribution of the high-profile non-indigenous species while testing our optimized molecular surveillance tools and protocols.
Read more

A framework for quantifying of marine biosecurity risk factors associated with common vessel types

This publication synthesizes empirical data on a wide range of vessel types and characteristics to develop a framework that allows systematic quantification of the relative risk of NIS transfer by common commercial vessel types. A potential application of the framework for assigning a relative risk level for New Zealand ports, based on the arrival frequencies of different vessel types, is presented.
Read more

Lessons from an international cross-laboratory experiment on delivering reproducible metabarcoding data

Acknowledging the need for a coordinated effort to accelerate the uptake of high-throughput sequencing (HTS) based tools for biodiversity surveys and biosecurity applications, an international cross-laboratory experiment was conducted to evaluate replicability of a metabarcoding protocol and explore how laboratory-based variance in sample handling and processing impacts biodiversity assessments.
Read more

Joint Microplastics and Marine Biosecurity expedition

Our 12-14 day expedition will collect microplastics and biosecurity data in the Hauraki Gulf & Islands areas and Whangarei, whilst exploring the wider marine environment of coastal Greater Auckland and Northland. This interdisciplinary oceanic research expedition aims to inspire and engage the public and educate people about the importance of working collaboratively to preserve a healthy ocean.
Read more

CONTACT US

Back To Top