The challenges of monitoring the where, when and how many for insect sleeper pests: the example of <i>Spodoptera litura</i> (tropical armyworm) in Aotearoa New Zealand

<p dir="ltr">Farmers will face a different suite of insect pests under climate change. Monitoring their population dynamics over time is important for risk assessment and mitigation, but it can be expensive and time-consuming. After appropriate quality checks and analyses, data from two online citizen science platforms, iNaturalist and the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), indicated higher numbers and an extended geographical range of the representative sleeper pest in Aotearoa New Zealand, <i>Spodoptera litura</i>, in 2018 and 2022-23. This example suggests that these platforms could be a useful tool for future pest monitoring.</p>