Bees proposed as biosecurity flying squad

AUCKLAND: Bees could be the key to better biosecurity.

Scientists are exploring whether these tireless workers of our fields, forests and orchards might also be able to pick up any costly new incursions.

New Zealand spends nearly $250 million a year on surveillance, eradication and management programmes and a string of unwanted visitors to our shores has only heaped on more pressure.

They included cropping pest velvetleaf, fungal scourge myrtle rust and cattle bacterial disease Mycoplasma bovis, which has already cost $800 million and counting.

Andrew Cridge, of the University of Otago’s School of Biochemistry, said such incursions were tough to contain once they had crossed into the country.

The best chance of a successful eradication was rapid detection.

But when it came to noxious weeds that could cause big headaches for the primary sector, our monitoring system largely relied on chance observations and border interceptions.

In honeybees, Dr Cridge saw a clever way to quickly tell if we had a new troublesome weed on our hands.

In a major new project, his team would use bees to gather pollen from a dozen rural and urban sites around the country, including highrisk spots for exo tic weed invasions.

Next, the researchers would apply nextgeneration DNA sequencing to classify the gathered pollen and reveal if they had come from any of the weeds.

‘‘This will not only allow us to identify plant species that have evaded detection and established in the wild, but determine the range of the incursion.’’

The study would use speciallydeveloped approach dubbed ‘‘metabarcoding’’, which could accurately characterise the pollen.

‘‘DNA metabarcoding can provide higherresolution identification of pollen at a scale and sensitivity not possible through traditional identification methods, such as microscopy.’’

Dr Cridge described it as a means of identifying organisms based on differences that showed up in their sequenced DNA.

‘‘We have used DNA metabarcoding previously to identify which plant species native moths pollinate.’’

In this case, they hoped to develop the approach to the point where it could be used as a surveillance tool, either at border control or at highrisk sites, such as areas where international tourists camped on their first night in the country.

The study is being supported with a $964,000 grant from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment’s Endeavour Fund. — NZME

a