Editorial

Abstract

It is an understatement to say that we have all been seriously affected by Covid-19-induced health concerns, lockdowns and travel restrictions over the past two years. From a biosecurity perspective, the lack of international travellers arriving in Aotearoa / New Zealand may have helped reduce the risk of unwanted organisms entering our country to some degree, but having our biosecurity personnel confined to barracks provided invasive species the opportunity to rebound in their absence. Reports of biosecurity issues throughout the Covid times are a sure indicator that invasive species are alive and well out there – for example the Mycoplasma bovis recurrence in Canterbury, pepino mosaic virus in Tāmaki Makaurau / Auckland, two marine pests (Asian seaweed Undaria pinnatifida and the carpet sea squirt Didemnum vexillum) at Rakiura / Stewart Island, and a too-close-to-home outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in Southeast Asia. As the general populace everywhere scrambled to survive in their day-to-day family and professional lives throughout the pandemic impacts, submission of academic manuscripts for publication clearly slipped (perhaps justifiably) to a low priority. As a result, only one paper was submitted to Perspectives in Biosecurity in 2021. This was published early in that year “ahead of print” as we felt that the myrtle rust subject matter was too important to wait for an end-of-year full issue (see Schmid et al. 2021). That early publication was a fortunate move given that no further papers materialised! However, we are delighted to present three very different research papers in this year’s issue of Perspectives in Biosecurity. The first paper describes the development of an intriguing mixed native–naturalised vegetation association on an island near urban Tāmaki Makaurau / Auckland. The second paper reports for the first time the lichenised fungi species found on two native tree species (ramarama Lophomyrtus bullata and rōhutu L. obcordata) that are threatened by myrtle rust. The third paper covers some preliminary research on the efficacy of the Honshu white admiral butterfly (Limenitis glorifica) as a biological control against Japanese honeysuckle (Lonicera japonica). We gratefully thank the authors for their contributions to this issue, and acknowledge their persistence and productivity over what has been a challenging time to complete research projects.