Rapid response is crucial to minimising the cost of an incursion of an invading pest/disease organism. An essential part of a rapid response is an effective surveillance strategy, and central to effective surveillance is knowing where to look. This requires a rapid assessment of the organism potential to spread in the environment where it has been found. This project will help managers to quickly marshal all available biological information to forecast spread of a new pest or disease.

What is the biosecurity problem?

When a new Emergency Plant Pest/disease (EPP) is discovered, a rapid and accurate response is needed. The cost of management escalates and the feasibility of eradication quickly declines as the organism spreads.

Historically, surveillance programs have been developed in an ad-hoc manner, on a case-by-case basis. With recent advances in spread simulation modelling, real time predictions of the areas most likely to be inhabited by an invading species can be made. However, most simulation models are species-specific and not easily modified to predict spread of a new species.

This project will provide a system for quickly gathering biological information that can readily be estimated by scientists. This information will then be used to generate quantitative parameters required for simulating spread. Rapid characterisation of new invading organisms will provide timely information about their biology and spread potential. 

The main outputs of this project are to:

• develop a system, called multi-layer functional groups, that rapidly characterises invading organisms with respect to behaviours affecting spread in a particular environment

   

• validate the use of this system by characterising a number of ‘key' pest/disease organisms, parameterising existing simulation models to predict spread, and assessing the results using available surveillance data, and

   

• use planned releases of biological control agents to predict and monitor the spread of invading organisms in landscapes, which will allow us to validate the multi-layer functional groups approach and its application to parameterising existing spread models.
   

Who will be the end-users of this research?

End users such as DAFF (BA & AQIS), State Departments of Agriculture, Plant Health Australia, CBH, ABB, GRDC, HAL and RIRDC will employ the system for rapid characterisation of new invading organisms directly to evaluate risk.