A conceptual example of the relationship between the relative NIS risk at each site (numbers within hexagons, assuming an exponential distribution) and the site visit rate assuming random, risk-based and heavy risk-based surveillance, over three site visits (blue outline) during a model run. The highest risk hexagons in this example represent two port sites, one seeded with a NIS at the beginning of the simulation (orange fill). Under random surveillance three sites are visited with no relationship to risk, under risk-based, three high risk sites are visited and under heavy risk-based surveillance, the highest risk site, only, is visited three times.

 
 
  Part of: Gibson TI, Millard RS, MacMillan I, Taylor N, Thrush M, Tidbury H (2025) Application of a theoretical simulator to the optimisation of risk-based invasive species surveillance. NeoBiota 97: 19-46. https://doi.org/10.3897/neobiota.97.121188