THE EXTRACT

May 2023

Upcoming events this June

We are excited to announce that we will be joining the brand new Sustainability Hub at 2023 National Fieldays this month. This is Wilderlab’s first year attending Fieldays with our own dedicated space, and we’re proud to be joining RiverWatch as cosponsors of the healthy waterways cluster within the new Hub.

The Hub and it’s sustainability-focused organisations aim to provide easy-access to accurate information about sustainability and the environment, providing a positive space for engaging in meaningful conversations for stronger environmental protection.

The Wilderlab team will be showcasing how eDNA technology can be a powerful tool to help better understand aquatic ecosystems and the challenges they’re facing. We’ll have a few things to give away and some opportunities to get your hands wet in our very own model river environment! We are joining other experts in the Hub to deliver several talks throughout the 4 days and will have lots of our lovely staff on the booth if you’d like to stop by. Head over to our Facebook page to see updates on the talk schedule when it is published next week.

We’re also very excited to be a finalist in this years’ Fieldays Innovation Awards in the Growth and Scale category for our TICI ecological health index. Congratulations to the other finalists, and we look forward to hearing the outcome during the event.

Some of our team are also heading over to Brisbane later this week to attend the Freshwater Sciences 2023 conference. We’ll have a booth in the main event area and both our Principal Scientist and Founder, Shaun Wilkinson, and our Freshwater and Community Science lead, Amy Gault, will be giving oral presentations.

We’re being joined by some of our colleagues from eDNA Frontiers to announce our exciting new partnership. We’ve teamed up to provide users with an expanded range of biodiversity monitoring services to help address the growing applications of eDNA. We’ll be sharing more about the offerings and opportunities through this partnership over the next few months.

Head over to our booth if you’d like to have a chat about how our tools could help with your upcoming projects!

New invasive clam found in the Waikato River

This month we learned the disturbing news that the freshwater golden clam Corbicula fluminea has reached our shores, with an incursion discovered the Waikato River during May 2023.

This species has caused devastating ecological effects elsewhere in the world, and we’re still unsure what impacts they will have on our endemic kākahi (freshwater mussels) and other taonga. Wilderlab is assisting MPI in the incursion response, after having picked up this species in several eDNA samples collected from the same region during April. Given the likelihood that this species will continue to spread, we are now working to develop and validate an ultra-sensitive eDNA assay to help map the invasion front. We’ll keep you posted with how this progresses, and when this service will be available for Wilderlab customers.

Webinars to have on your calendar and weekend watch list

Manaaki Whenua Landcare Research have begun a wānanga series engaging in key topics to inform the development of a Te Tiriti-guided national DNA reference library for Aotearoa’s biodiversity.

The first wānanga was for ‘End-use cases of reference databases’ and had a wide range of scientists and researchers share examples and future visions for a database and the applications it could contribute to. Our Principal Scientist, Shaun Wilkinson, was amongst those presenting and shared some examples of how improved reference data would expand the usability of eDNA tools and approaches. You can head over to watch the recording here.

The second wānanga was held earlier this week, and brought together Māori kaikōrero to discuss ‘Māori perspectives on the uses of DNA data’. This was a very rich event with over 240 live listeners. The recording for this event isn’t yet live, but will be accessible through the Manaaki Whenua website in due course.

You can view the upcoming wānanga topics and register for the online events here. Upcoming wānanga include:

• Monday 26 June, 10am – 12pm: Database architecture, process, and pathways

• Monday 24 July, 10am – 12pm: Data governance and sovereignty

• Monday 28 August, 11am – 1pm: Barcoding technologies and pipelines

• Monday 25 September, 11am – 1pm: Cross-project fertilization of best practice

The NZ EPA hosted a webinar last week to discuss important data storage, safety and sovereignty information as a part of their Wai Tuwhera o te Taiao programme. Speakers included the programme lead coordinator Vanessa Crowe, Professor Philip Wilcox of Otago University, and our Founder and Principal Scientist, Shaun Wilkinson.

Shaun shared on Wilderlab’s practices and priorities of data storage and security, the ways in which we future-proof participants eDNA information, and some recent updates to our terms and conditions which are more consistent with te ao māori perspectives on data sovereignty.

The recording of this event is also in the process of being compiled, and will be accessible for view through the Wai Tuwhera o te Taiao page soon.

Around a quarter of the samples we have processed to date are publicly accessible on the map, with the remaining samples kept private as the default option. These public samples are a rich source of information for students, managers and members of the public alike, and can save a lot of duplicated effort and cost if eDNA results are already available from a place of interest.

If you have any private sample results that you would like to make public or if you have any questions about the process, feel free to get in touch with our team through info@wilderlab.co.nz.

A call to connect with community catchment groups

Mountains to Sea Conversation Trust are leading a new nationwide project called Wai Connection | Tatai ki te Wai.

As a part of the early phases of this project, their team is wanting to gain a clearer picture of currently established catchment community groups throughout Aotearoa with hope to collate a map that community organisers and collaborators could use to establish wider reaching connections around the motu.

Learn more about this effort and how you could help develop this important resource here.