Confidence in stable isotopes to verify a high risk pest incursion as foreign or NZ established

Biosecurity outcome

• Stable isotope (SI) signatures of origin will aid MPI decisions on the level of response needed for a new high risk, post-border pest detection, by providing supporting evidence of a locally breeding population or fresh overseas arrival.
• The first evidence of whether the plant part (fruit, leaf, sap, wood) used for insect growth, and acquisition of its SI signature, influences use of that data

Science outcome

A novel statistically-based method of landscape isotope (isoscape) data to distinguish the origins of insects will be generated