What lives in that stream?
Crime-fighting techniques track down pests
Pests & pollution: tools to predict where they'll go
Freshwater biodiversity & biosecurity courses
A treasure chest of marine animals
Follow-up field inspection in Otukikino Reserve, Christchurch
A handful of aquatic plants to identify, including a native milfoil, pondweed, and the introduced Canadian pondweed
The potential for eradicating aquatic weeds very much depends on catching the new incursion early, and that depends on people recognising them.
Blenny specimen (Rudie Kuiter, Aquatic Photographics)
In crime-fighting TV serials, DNA techniques often crack the impossible case.
Recently NIWA used DNA techniques to identify an invasive blenny found in Auckland.
By comparing the DNA sequences in a range of blenny species from Australia, we were able to show that those in the invasive blenny closely matched those from Omobranchus anolius, but not those from three other species in the same genus. However, minor differences in the DNA sequences indicated that the Auckland specimens were not derived from O.
Although the National Centre for Aquatic Biodiversity and Biosecurity obviously concerns itself with matters aquatic, it can capitalise on work by NIWA’s atmospheric scientists.
NIWA has developed models to predict how wind-borne pests and diseases could spread. These have been used to help Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry entomologists at the National Plant Pests Reference Laboratory determine where pests may go and where they may have come from if carried by the wind.
FBIS map showing where data on freshwater species have been collected around Auckland.
Information on freshwater biodiversity is now available on the web at the click of a mouse.
NIWA, supported by funding from the Department of Conservation, has created the Freshwater Biodata Information System (FBIS), which contains records of over 105 000 samples of plants and animals living in lakes, rivers, and streams, and their locations.
Here are some examples of how FBIS could be used.
A developer wants to take water from one of several streams in an area.
The NIWA collection holds over 100 000 containers, representing several million specimens.
The Southwest Pacific has the world’s highest species diversity for many marine invertebrate groups.
