Ministry for Primary Industries

Citizen Science and Environmental DNA Reveals Site of an Invasive Paropsisterna beata (Newman) (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae) Population in New Zealand

More than a decade after being declared eradicated, a population of the Australian blessed leaf beetle Paropsisterna beata (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae) was located in New Zealand in 2026. The pest has been found and photographed three times by citizen scientists approximately 25 k...

Development and Validation of a Passive Surveillance System for Early Detection of Pepino Mosaic Virus in Commercial Greenhouse Facilities

The use of environmental nucleic acid (eNA), both DNA and RNA, as a means for surveillance has been a fixture in the scientific literature for many years. The application of environmental screening for genomic signatures of organisms of interest—particularly those of diagnostic c...