AU Pest Genomes

The Challenge

Australian researchers and pest species managers are developing chemical, biological and genetic control strategies for native and invasive pest species. However, they often lack quality reference datasets such as genomes of relevance to Australia, associated population data and pipelines for downstream use and analysis of data assets.

The Response

AU Pest Genomes will deliver reference-quality data assets for Australian pests and invasive species to aid development and uptake of modern genome-based approaches to their management.

This project will:

• identify and collate national and international pest and invasive species data with metadata
• deliver workflows and software pipelines with connectivity to interactive analytical tools
• make collated and curated reference genomics data assets available via CSIRO’s Data Access Portal.

Who Will Benefit

Australians will benefit from reduced public health risks and the reduction in the impacts of these species.

AU Pest Genomes will also enable:

• public health managers to design intervention strategies and control options for human and animal disease
• research use on a global scale and permit rapid reanalysis when conditions change or when research identifies a new trait of concern
• student, researcher and citizen science training using existing software linked to generated data assets.

The Partners

Our partners are:

• CSIRO
• ANU
• Macquarie University
• University of Melbourne
• Australian BioCommons
• Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fisheries
• South Australian Research and Development Institute

Target Outcomes

This project will collate, simplify, upgrade and coordinate the data assets that underpin future pest research and management in Australia, making Australia a world leader in genome-based approaches to control. 

More Information

For more information on AU Pest Genomes, visit the Australian Pest Genome Partnership website.