Pests, diseases, weeds and other invasive species cause significant damage worldwide through their effects on human health, the environment and the economy. It is well known that the community can play an important role in invasive-species management through passive surveillance, where members of the public report chance sightings of pests and diseases at their discretion. These reports can be particularly valuable, in terms of cost savings and reduced damage, when they lead to detections of new pests and diseases or information about new outbreaks of known incursions. Unfortunately not much is known on cost-effective ways to elicit and incorporate information from the public in pest-management programs. In this paper we review the current knowledge base with the aim to stimulate the research required to improve our understanding of passive surveillance. We provide guidance on the type of data that should be collected by agencies to eventually give us the ability to design optimal surveillance portfolios that integrate contributions by the public to best advantage.

Hester, S.M. & Cacho, O.J., (2017). The contribution of passive surveillance to invasive species management, Biological Invasions, 19(3), pp.737-748.