The Māori Data Sovereignty (MDSov) movement advocates for Māori rights and interests in data and works to ensure that Māori data supports Māori aspirations. The language of MDSov has now been used for a decade, as conceptualised in Aotearoa by Te Mana Raraunga, the Māori data sovereignty network and globally through the Global Indigenous Data Alliance. To mark this decade, this special issue takes stock of developments within MDSov and how researchers have implemented these principles in diverse disciplines and science. In this review, we take stock of the movement, reflecting on its constitutional and historical underpinnings, and how Te Mana Raraunga came to exist. We then describe the major themes of the special issue: that the concept of MDSov is now well established and is increasingly being applied in frameworks across new issues and subject areas to benefit equity; that hapū and Iwi are implementing these frameworks in useful ways and that technical solutions are an exciting space for further innovation. Finally, we look ahead to the next decade and the challenges (and opportunities) of extending the movement across groups and where it might become appropriation; to artificial intelligence and to evolution in the data ecosystem, such as changes to the census. Taken together, this review shows that MDSov is widely used, with a wide range of researchers implementing its principles, and that it provides methods and ideas to move data and research in Aotearoa New Zealand forward into the future.
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is an escalating global challenge with significant implications for human health, agriculture and environmental sustainability in Aotearoa New Zealand. As for many complex 'wicked problems', addressing AMR requires coordinated, transdisciplinary approaches that integrate research, policy and practice; however, current efforts remain fragmented, limiting national impact and readiness to respond to this complex threat. Here, we describe the establishment of the Aotearoa New Zealand Antimicrobial Resistance Network (NZAMRNet), a national collaborative initiative to strengthen coordination across the AMR landscape. NZAMRNet provides an enabling platform to connect researchers, clinicians, industry and policymakers, supporting aligned research activity, knowledge exchange and evidence-informed decision-making. We outline the network's strategic focus and its role in enhancing collaboration, building capability and improving translation into practice and policy. NZAMRNet strengthens national coordination and positions Aotearoa New Zealand to lead integrated regional responses to AMR. NZAMRNet represents an important step toward a more coherent, adaptive and impactful response to AMR.
Citizen reporting of biosecurity threats is an important yet inconsistently practiced element of environmental surveillance. This study examines the behavioural factors shaping reporting in Aotearoa New Zealand by conceptualising reporting as a multi-step process influenced by psychological, social, and structural conditions. Drawing on behavioural science, we apply the Capability, Opportunity, Motivation-Behaviour model alongside audience segmentation to identify barriers and drivers of reporting using a national survey of 957 New Zealand adults. Latent profile analysis identified four distinct behavioural segments-Engaged Reporters, Reluctant Reporters, Willing but Unaware and Disconnected Non-reporters-characterised by differing levels of capability, opportunity and motivation. While public awareness of the importance of biosecurity has grown, personal engagement in surveillance activities remains comparatively limited. These findings suggest that constraints to reporting arise from a combination of informational, motivational and structural factors, which vary across population groups. Rather than prescribing specific interventions, the study provides a behavioural diagnostic that can inform the development of more targeted and context-sensitive engagement strategies. Importantly, the effectiveness of citizen reporting depends not only on individual behaviour but also on the capacity and responsiveness of the systems that receive and act on reports. As such, efforts to enhance reporting should consider both citizen engagement and system-level design. By integrating behavioural theory with audience segmentation, this study contributes to a more nuanced understanding of citizen participation in biosecurity and highlights the importance of aligning behavioural insights with practical and institutional considerations. Future research should evaluate the effectiveness of intervention strategies and examine how reporting behaviours translate into biosecurity outcomes in real-world contexts.
The accurate identification of insects supports conservation, biosecurity and ecological monitoring. However, morphological identification is constrained by taxonomic complexity, undescribed diversity, and limited expertise. DNA barcoding can alleviate some of these challenges and complement morphological identification, if reference data are comprehensive and reliable. We assessed the taxonomic, geographic and elevational coverage of New Zealand insect DNA barcodes using taxonomic names from the New Zealand Organisms Register, published estimates of undescribed species richness, and DNA barcode metadata. Only 18% of described native and exotic insect species currently have DNA barcodes, with higher coverage for exotic (59%) than native species (12%). DNA barcode coverage varies from complete in several single-species orders to very low in hyperdiverse orders such as Coleoptera (7%) and Diptera (5%), while moderately diverse aquatic orders reach 31%-91% coverage. Low elevation and populated regions are overrepresented in the DNA barcode data, and many species identifications are based on bioinformatic approaches rather than taxonomic or diagnostic expertise. Despite these biases, we propose that a complete national DNA barcode library for described insect species is highly achievable given access to well-curated insect collections and species name databases for tracking progress. Complete DNA barcoding of undescribed species will be more challenging and will require targeting underrepresented taxa, geographic regions and elevations. Sampling will need to incorporate field surveys with bulk specimen collection, environmental DNA, museomic approaches and expert-verified identifications. Completing this library will strengthen New Zealand's regional and national-scale biodiversity monitoring using environmental DNA, with important contributions to biosecurity and conservation outcomes.
Antifungal resistance in tropical mycoses is an increasingly important component of the global antimicrobial resistance crisis, particularly in endemic regions where diagnostic capacity, therapeutic options, and surveillance systems are limited. This review synthesizes clinical, environmental, and genomic evidence on resistance in major endemic and tropical fungal pathogens, including Histoplasma capsulatum, the Sporothrix schenckii complex, Talaromyces marneffei, the Paracoccidioides brasiliensis complex, and tropical Aspergillus fumigatus isolates. Reported mechanisms include target alteration involving ERG11/CYP51A and FKS1, overexpression of efflux transporters, altered ergosterol biosynthesis, stress response pathways, and biofilm-associated tolerance. Environmental and agricultural selection pressures, especially azole fungicide exposure, may promote the emergence of resistant strains before human infection occurs. The revised synthesis treats prevalence estimates as descriptive aggregations rather than a formal meta-analysis because included studies used heterogeneous antifungal susceptibility testing methods, breakpoints, and reporting formats. The evidence supports integrated surveillance that links clinical isolates, environmental sampling, antifungal stewardship, and genomic monitoring. Whole-genome sequencing and targeted molecular assays can shorten time to resistance detection, but genotype-phenotype discordance and incomplete resistance databases require cautious interpretation. Strengthening laboratory networks, improving access to validated diagnostics, and developing region-specific treatment guidance are essential to limit the clinical impact of antifungal resistance in endemic tropical settings.
In Aotearoa New Zealand, the Māori Trade Marks Advisory Committee advises the Commissioner of Trade Marks on whether trade mark applications that are, or appear to be, derivative of a Māori sign, are likely to be offensive to Māori. The Committee uses a Tapu-Noa Matrix to help ascertain offensiveness. This article explains and evaluates the Matrix, which is not examined in the existing scholarship. First, it explains the tikanga Māori legal system and the tikanga concepts mana, tapu and noa. Second, it outlines two iterations of the Tapu-Noa Matrix: a prototype matrix and the published practice note matrix. Third, it explains the axes of the matrices and provides examples of trade marks at different points. Fourth, it provides examples at coordinates on the matrices to illustrate their application. Finally, it evaluates the matrices and suggests that the published practice note matrix is more accurate and useful than the prototype matrix. In doing so, it demonstrates developments and challenges in applying tikanga concepts to serve tests under the state law.
Pacific peoples experience a disproportionate burden of respiratory infectious diseases in Aotearoa New Zealand, and surveillance sensitivity depends on capturing transmission in high-risk populations. Despite substantial post-COVID investment in respiratory surveillance, representativeness for Pacific peoples has not been systematically evaluated. We analysed de-identified data from two national community-based surveillance systems-FluTracking and sentinel general practitioner (GP) respiratory surveillance-from 2018 to 2024. Observed Pacific participation was compared with population benchmarks and non-Pacific participation, and trends by age, sex, deprivation and health district were examined, including Pacific-dense districts. Pacific peoples, who experience a disproportionate burden of respiratory disease, were persistently underrepresented in FluTracking. After a temporary increase in 2020, representation declined by an average of 0.8% per year to 2024 (p = 0.027). By 2024, less than one-third of the expected sample was achieved annually. Pacific participants were disproportionately from less deprived areas. Sentinel GP surveillance showed the lowest density of participating practices relative to Pacific population size in Pacific-dense districts, particularly Counties Manukau and Waitematā. Underrepresentation creates a mismatch between disease burden and surveillance visibility, weakening early outbreak detection and limiting equitable public health responses. Embedding representational equity as a core design principle is essential for effective surveillance and equitable health outcomes.
Traditional success metrics in oral and maxillofacial surgery (OMFS) primarily emphasize clinician-reported outcomes such as anatomical correction, osseointegration, skeletal stability, and disease control. However, growing evidence indicates a frequent mismatch between these objective measures and patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) and quality of life (QoL), particularly in interventions affecting facial appearance and socially relevant functions. This narrative review examines the alignment and divergence between clinical outcomes and PROMs across major OMFS subspecialties, including dental implantology, orthognathic surgery, temporomandibular joint surgery, and oral cancer reconstruction. Across these domains, technical success often fails to translate into perceived patient benefit, with persistent functional, esthetic, or psychosocial concerns despite clinical stability. These findings underscore the need to redefine success in OMFS beyond structural restoration. Incorporating standardized PROMs as coprimary outcomes and adopting patient-centered, multidisciplinary care models are essential for achieving outcomes that reflect both clinical efficacy and meaningful improvements in patients' lived experiences.
The value of data continues to increase as new technologies have a seemingly insatiable demand for information. This places Indigenous peoples in the difficult position as both users of diverse data for standard and unique ends and the producers of standard and unique data for diverse ends. In Aotearoa New Zealand, Māori have entered scholarly and policy debates on data with typical relish. Yet our communities are at different stages of understanding and empowerment as the owners, producers and users of data. This article details a co-design process in producing a data framework that originated in the biosecurity space but has wider applications. While we use cultural metaphors to explain and communicate our work with the mundane and sacred, we are committed to providing practical templates for groups wanting to engage in research. But just as our data is linked to our people, so are current and future technologies that are subject to influence through societal laws and regulations. We offer some thoughts on how a safer world might arise through working in a more ethical way with Indigenous peoples and their data.
Accurate environmental and climate modelling depends on the availability of large observational datasets, yet the generation of such data is often costly and logistically challenging for individual research groups. This limitation is particularly acute in New Zealand, where geographic isolation, complex topography, and strong climatic gradients require dense observational networks for robust national and regional scale modelling. Here we present New Zealand's national precipitation isotope database, compiled through a community data-collection effort. The database integrates historical and contemporary datasets with varied analytical methods, sampling strategies, and temporal coverage. To enable combined use of these data, we describe a standardisation framework, including weighting using gridded precipitation data, and alignment of sampling periods to calendar months. We then show how the database updates and improves the Precipitation Isotopes New Zealand (PINZ) machine-learning isoscapes. Incorporation of newly contributed data, particularly from inland and high-elevation regions, reduces overall root mean square error relative to earlier model versions and substantially expands the model's area of applicability in New Zealand. Our results highlight that further advances will benefit from the availability of submonthly precipitation isotope measurements and improved coverage of alpine environments. We show that community participation offers a practical pathway to strengthening national precipitation isotope products and their application across hydrology, climate science, and related environmental science disciplines.
New Zealand's aquaculture industry is experiencing significant growth, driven by its carbon efficiency and the lack of spatial constraints on land. Green-lipped mussels, a key farmed species, are grown on long lines supported by buoyant plastic floats. Managing tens of thousands of these floats is an operational challenge for mussel farmers. Accordingly, applying multi-object detection to farm imagery is a promising way to improve crop monitoring and productivity. This paper presents a Genetic Programming (GP)-based method for multi-object detection in mussel farms, designed to address site-specific challenges such as a high density of targets, high levels of partial occlusion, and substantial variation in apparent object size due to camera distance. The proposed method integrates image preprocessing techniques for object localisation and GP techniques for classification. In terms of detection performance, the proposed method surpasses YOLOv12 by achieving an F1 score of 95.2% compared with 88.6%. Although execution speed and bounding box precision could be further improved, the method demonstrates robustness, effectiveness, and practical applicability in mussel farms.
The Māori health data governance (MHDGov) planning and protocol checklist offers a practical, implementation-focused framework to support health agencies and researchers to implement Te Kāhui Raraunga Māori Data Governance Model. This paper presents an evaluation of the MHDGov checklist, applied to the abdominal aortic aneurysm and atrial fibrillation screening research programme in the Health Gain Development team, Te Whatu Ora Health New Zealand. Desktop review and wānanga were utilised to critically review existing processes and assess the Māori data governance checklist. Results suggest that the MHDGov checklist added significant value to the Health Gain Development team's research programme, filling an important implementation gap through structured and practical guidance.
Ensuring that hospital research advances Māori health equity is a key purpose of ethics and locality approval processes in Aotearoa. A systematic integrative literature review method was prescribed, which involved a comprehensive systematic collection and review of database and hand-searched items using English and te reo Māori terms, MeSH, keywords and questions. A dual appraisal of literature was undertaken using Rayyan software and Microsoft Office, before a descriptive thematic analysis of relevant sources. This article examined 106 literature sources published between 1980 and 2021 to identify and understand how Indigenous review and engagement processes can enhance Māori responsiveness in research. Findings affirmed challenges and opportunities in implementing Māori research reviews, consistent with the pūrākau of Tāne and the attainment of Ngā Kete o te Wānanga. Subsequently, Ngā kete o te Rangahau, the three baskets of research, emerged, generating a framework for considering responsiveness in Māori research reviews.
Universities in Aotearoa generate and hold large volumes of research data, including increasing amounts of Māori data shaped by Vision Mātauranga. Yet practice around Māori Data Sovereignty (MDSov) remains uneven, with commitments often aspirational rather than operational. This article assesses how Tiriti-led institutions are upholding the mana and mauri of Māori data as taonga and identifies how bureaucratic inertia maintains the gap between policy signals and everyday research practice. Using a data ecosystem lens, we consider the roles of actors, stakeholders and Māori as rightsholders across the research lifecycle. A case study of Waipapa Taumata Rau highlights both progress and fragmentation. We synthesise recent Māori and Indigenous data governance developments and propose practical steps to shift from voluntary alignment to accountable practice. We argue that meaningful implementation of Māori Research Data Governance is necessary for universities to act as kaitiaki and ensure Māori benefit from data use and reuse.
Over the last decade there have been significant advances in genome sequencing and model species development for ferns, lycophytes, and the bryophyte lineages-mosses, liverworts, and hornworts. This has facilitated research on the biosynthesis and function of flavonoids in these non-seed land-plant lineages. Most studies have been on the liverwort model species Marchantia polymorpha (Marchantia). There has been extensive characterisation of biosynthetic and regulatory genes of the Marchantia flavonoid pathway, including generation of loss-of-function mutant lines to examine flavonoid contribution to tolerance of abiotic stresses and pathogen infection. Notably, the red pigments of liverworts were shown to be a new class of flavonoids, named 'auronidins'. There are relatively few studies on mosses, lycophytes, or ferns. Yet these lineages also contain distinct red pigment structures not found in seed plants. They also contain novel enzymatic activities, unique horizontal gene transfer events, and expanded gene families for proteins such as the polyphenol oxidases. Additionally, the hornworts have been shown to have lost the flavonoid pathway during lineage-specific evolution. Indeed, evidence suggests that aspects of flavonoid biosynthesis may have been lost and regained on multiple occasions, in different lineages, during land plant evolution. In this review, we summarise recent advances in understanding of flavonoid biosynthesis in non-seed plants and examine how this informs theories of the evolution of the flavonoid pathway across the land-plant lineages.
Cost of illness (COI) studies are used to quantify the economic burden of disease on health systems, employers and society, and identify where costs may be saved by improvements in disease management. Many migraine COI studies have been published internationally but none have included data from Aotearoa New Zealand (NZ), despite the known high prevalence and individual health burden of migraine. Adapting methods for data reviews developed at the University of Auckland, we reviewed known data sources to identify relevant NZ datasets containing information on migraine prevalence, direct and indirect costs from migraine, supplemented by searches of peer-reviewed literature. Data sources were evaluated against pre-defined criteria to assess quality. We found adequate data on migraine prevalence but limited to no data on migraine-specific indirect costs (absenteeism or presenteeism, reduced employment or inability to work because of migraine). Data on direct costs were insufficient, due to poor or lack of diagnostic data in key areas such as primary care, pharmaceuticals, outpatients, laboratory or imaging tests. This review revealed significant data gaps that would need to be filled for a comprehensive and robust NZ migraine COI study or any ongoing research into migraine in NZ.
Data have always been a taonga (treasure) for tribal communities, supporting aspirations and wellbeing. In 2005, Ngāti Hauiti established Aotearoa's first tribally-owned health research centre, Whakauae Research Services Ltd., to build research capacity among Ngāti Hauiti uri (descendants) and undertake high-quality, Māori-centred health research to improve outcomes for Māori. While data stewardship has always been important to Whakauae, the emergence of Indigenous Data Sovereignty and Indigenous Data Governance has enabled the organisation to further strengthen its approach. This article presents the early stages of developing a Māori Data Governance model as a case study for organisations working with Māori, especially tribal data. The process involved mapping Ngāti Hauiti's data ecosystem and then co-developing a governance model, Te Pā Raraunga, with a cultural advisor, informed by tribal knowledge. The model uses the metaphor of a pā tūwatawata (fort defended by a stockade), with each part representing a key aspect of data governance identified through the mapping exercise. The article further discusses the model's implementation and next steps for the socialisation of the model. Developing internal capacity and collective understanding are highlighted as necessary for Whakauae and Ngāti Hauiti's successful enactment of data governance, as well as for other organisations starting a data governance journey.
Food insecurity is a complex phenomenon in high income countries. While there is food security information about Māori, Pasifika, and children in Aotearoa New Zealand (Aotearoa), there is little known about food security by geographic area. Using data from the 2019/2020 New Zealand Health Survey, we report on a set of eight statements relating to having sufficient resources to provide food for all members in the household, by rurality. We further investigate these measures stratified by socio-demographic variables and by rurality. Results showed there are households experiencing food insecurity in rural Aotearoa. Results further showed that food resource insufficiency was less prevalent in rural households than in nonrural households across almost every variable of age, gender, and deprivation. A lower proportion of rural Māori households faced concerns of resource insufficiency than nonrural Māori households, yet rural Māori still experience rates of resource insufficiency higher than nonrural non-Māori for each metric measured. Our results highlight ethnicity as an important marker of food insecurity and support views expressed by public health experts calling for policies and initiatives to address food resource insufficiency that results from structural racism.
