The Cawthron Institute Trust Board funded Research Programmes

Invasive pests are a priority threat to Aotearoa New Zealand’s coastal environments. They can damage and irreversibly alter ecosystems we depend on for our identity, food, jobs, and recreation. These threats are escalating in a changing climate and, now more than ever, we need to front-foot effective defences to eliminate marine pests and roll back their impacts.

Aotearoa New Zealand has led the world in applied innovation for marine biosecurity – our systems to reduce the likelihood of pests arriving at our shores and rapidly detect any that do have set the standard. The essential next step is to develop effective strategies, tactics, technologies, and tools to eradicate or manage an extensive legacy of pests and inevitable ongoing incursions. Our programme will do just this, adding teeth to the overall biosecurity system.

We believe the key for effective marine pest control is to set clear goals at the earliest opportunity (as NZ did with COVID-19), followed by tactical application of fit-for-purpose control tools/technologies. To achieve this, we will develop and prove a spectrum of strategies that bridge the gap between invasion theory and practical biosecurity. These strategies will be backed by innovative decision-support and tactical planning tools plus a portfolio of cutting-edge pest control platform technologies designed to remove or kill pests at the rates and scales required to succeed.

This programme builds beyond the success of the Cawthron-led Marine Biosecurity Toolbox Endeavour Programme that delivered transformational science outcomes for marine surveillance and pathway management. In partnership with stakeholders across the biosecurity system, we are now positioned to transform marine pest control science and, in doing so, enhance coastal resources for long-term resilience and a thriving blue economy.

The oceans are warming, and our coastal environment is experiencing anthropogenic pressures that are reshaping microalgal communities. As the foundation of marine food webs and a substantial carbon sink, microalgal communities play a crucial role in marine ecosystem functioning and the blue economy, as well as influencing human recreational activities in and around the water. Microalgal community changes such as increased harmful algal blooms (HABs), decreases in beneficial species and the emergence of ‘ocean deserts’, threaten our marine ecosystems and have drastic ecosystem-level consequences. It is vital that we understand these evolving microalgal dynamics to enable effective management.

We will develop a holistic and functional understanding of microalgal community dynamics using state-of-the-art approaches, including omic techniques, novel sensing approaches and artificial intelligence. From this, we will optimise novel monitoring approaches and refine the reporting, accessibility and communication of information on HABs. Assessing the impacts of HAB species on ecosystem and human health will underpin the development of guidelines for safe recreational use of coastal waters, create pathways for mitigation approaches and will aid iwi/hapū kaitiaki practitioners in the development of environmental management plans. Assessing how climate change impacts the physiology and nutritional quality of beneficial microalgae will inform industry planning and production practices. Microalgal forecasting by predictive models and incorporating spectral data from national- to local-scales will create new digital tools, enabling a real-time HAB alert system to reduce future impacts.

Our programme will position Aotearoa to be proactive in prediction and management of these microalgal changes. The new tools will transform our ability to actively manage microalgal communities and develop effective mitigation strategies that protect marine ecosystems, safeguard public health and support sustainable development of the blue economy.

Climate change is increasingly impacting food production systems and industry needs to better prepare for future climate challenges. Aotearoa New Zealand’s ocean ecosystems and farmed finfish are already impacted by warming sea temperatures, as demonstrated by the recent salmon mortalities in the Marlborough Sounds. To enable the finfish aquaculture sector to thrive and adapt to this uncertainty, we will create future adaptive breeding strategies that shift from a short-term productivity focus to incorporate resilience breeding in a new dynamic future context. With that knowledge we will develop new adaptation plans that incorporate climate-change forecasting and identify strategies to respond to emerging threats.

This new approach will enable breeding programmes co-designed with industry and iwi to adjust as future environmental conditions emerge. This will help established (salmon) and emerging taonga species (tāmure/snapper and haku/kingfish) thrive and provide industry and iwi with options through species diversification. Using multiple molecular tools (e.g., DNA sequencing and gene expression analysis) we will identify genes of importance for resilience and will deliver accelerated and increased genetic gain. With our Māori partners we will develop best-practice to ensure these technologies are applied appropriately within a Te Ao Māori context.

Our research meets an urgent need by accurately identifying resilient finfish that will be bred to improve survival, welfare and performance in multiple environments, protecting and adding value to a growing industry into the future. Our research will make sure the right species and genotypes are farmed in the right locations as climate futures emerge. Our adaptation and resilience breeding tools will be applicable beyond aquaculture, locally and globally, including other primary producers, stock managers and conservationists, enabling development and proactive tuning of climate change adaptation responses.

Healthy freshwater is vital to New Zealanders. It is critical that we care for and manage it to maximise cultural, environmental, social, and economic outcomes.

Our lakes are in crisis due to climate change and anthropogenic pressures, including nutrient and sediment run off, invasive species, and water level fluctuations; approximately 45% have a water quality index of ‘poor’ or worse. These stressors are degrading lakes so that many no longer meet ecological, cultural, or societal needs and values, e.g., a source of food/mahinga kai, a taonga species habitat, or a recreational asset to enjoy.

Currently, communities, iwi and managers cannot effectively measure holistic lake ecosystem health, prioritise stressors to target for mitigation, or design future management plans accounting for climate change. Additionally, most lake restoration activities are not meeting expectations.

Our research combines biophysical science with te ao Māori and social science to develop a globally unique suite of tools to measure impacts, identify effective restoration methods, and assess long-term sustainability. This is achieved by developing and implementing a holistic lake health assessment tool and delivering a new approach for assessing lake health degradation risk. This will allow managers to prioritise their actions to meet future needs. We also design, test, and implement a new integrated decision-making framework to guide restoration at lake, regional and national scales, providing a transparent, rigorous, and defensible approach to guide effective use of resources.

The programme has been co-developed with Māori, primary industry, and freshwater management agencies, enabling rapid implementation of our tools and policy uptake of our new approaches. This research will dramatically impact lake ecosystem health and the cultural and economic wellbeing of people and communities around these waterbodies.

Harmful aquatic diseases have destructive impacts on NZ’s marine and freshwater animals and plants and represent a significant ongoing risk. Diseases can devastate wild and farmed seafood sectors, damage aquatic ecosystems, and the wellbeing of our communities. The number of aquatic disease investigations in Aotearoa/New Zealand doubled in the past five years, and most of these diseases take years to diagnose or a cause is never identified, undermining all management efforts. Disease emergence in our waterways is escalating under climate change and we need new and improved ways to prevent and respond to this threat effectively.

Our Emerging Aquatic Diseases Research Programme will overcome some long-standing challenges to resolving aquatic disease causation. We will draw upon medical frameworks to develop and implement a new forensic approach for investigating aquatic disease that will enable reliable and timely diagnosis. This will provide the knowledge needed for effective collective action by scientists, government, and communities.

We will focus on key steps in the diagnostic process to predict emerging disease trends, improve incident reporting, advance our ability to identify a short-list of suspects early in the diagnostic process, and better understand the factors that might be causing aquatic disease outbreaks. The programme will unite leading scientific expertise in aquatic animal health, biosecurity, microbiology (bacteriology, parasitology, and virology), genomics, cell culture, aquatic animal husbandry, and social science alongside mana whenua and government stakeholders.

This new approach to aquatic disease investigation will build national resilience against aquatic disease by improving reliability and speed of our efforts to diagnose diseases and respond to them. These outcomes will ultimately protect our precious aquatic ecosystems, preserve aquatic cultural and social value, and safeguard our >$3B seafood industries.

Freshwater fish are a cornerstone of freshwater values in Aotearoa including biodiversity and ecosystem health. They help New Zealanders sustain their cultural identities and to care and connect with the natural world. However, we are failing to protect fish and the values they support, and so we are failing to protect and nurture healthy freshwater ecosystems and healthy people. There is an urgent need to address the increasing pressure on our native fish from pressures like human activity, climate change, and threats from other species. This research aims to transform the way we think about and manage freshwater fish through the co-development of new knowledge. One of the key challenges in doing something about the pressures on native fish are the differences in values and interests of the various groups of people who care for New Zealand’s freshwater environment. This is why three place-based studies and a national policy working group will work toward fostering a shared understanding, respect and reconciliation of different values for fishes. Co-designed studies that investigate both social and environmental issues will help us understand how freshwater fish and fisheries can be enhanced and effectively managed in response to future climate change pressures. Studies will draw on expertise in fundamental and applied fish ecology, biophysical modelling, mātauranga Māori, environmental values, qualitative and quantitative social science methods, science-policy relations, and applied and critical policy analysis. A policy working group, made up of New Zealand’s leading fish management agencies, will be tasked to develop new planning tools and responsive policies grounded by Treaty principles to better integrate the management of native and introduced fishes in Aotearoa.

Open Ocean Aquaculture (OOA) is a globally recognised opportunity for sustainable food production. It is a NZ government priority, industry is poised to grow, but NZ’s advancement of multi-species aquaculture into the open ocean is handicapped by extensive knowledge gaps and lack of proven technology.

Cawthron’s programme of OOA research will address these impediments enabling acceleration and transformation of primary production in this new frontier. The Cawthron led team of scientists, industry, iwi and international collaborators have previously revolutionised NZ’s approach to the design and testing of OOA structures. This programme will build on established knowledge, relationships and capability to enable reliable and cost-effective shellfish and seaweed OOA.

We will use computer simulation tools to test thousands of structural designs, without the high costs and risks of a trial-and-error approach. We will take the best designs and create physical small-scale models that will be ‘challenged’ in specialised wave tanks to see if they are able to cope with high energy conditions. Those that perform will be built at scale as prototypes, deployed on open ocean farms and test sites, and monitored for real-world performance. Sensors will gather information to refine our simulation models and design process. Customized sensors and technology will be built to improve automation and monitoring, reducing on-farm visits and vessel/fuel requirements. Husbandry methods to farm our species on new structures in this new environment will be developed, adapted and improved.

We will enable the capability and capacity for the massive scale-up that is needed from pilot research to commercial production, and address social, environmental and te ao Māori perspectives, to ensure the widest social and environmental benefits to NZ from OOA.