b'FEATURE ARTICLEFigure 2. ISTA Reference Pest List methodological approach: (A) management step of the project from literature screening to list publication by ISTA;(B) decisional workflow to conclude whether seed is or is not a pathway, or if it is not provenis a need for collaboration in seed health testing to offer to the forest sectorReference Pest List (ISTA-RPL) project is to refresh this old, longstanding a coordinated response to such threats. ISTA has a role to play here throughISTA work and make it a free online bibliographic resource. The project the development and publication of new seed health methods. Other plantstarted in 2018 and involves a project manager to review the scientific species, like ornamentals, tropical and subtropical species could also beliterature and draft the lists for review, and numerous international experts considered for inclusion within the ISTA seed health methods.to independently review the lists before ISTA validates and publishes them (Fig. 2A). For this purpose, a decision scheme has been defined (Denanc and Grimault, 2022), referring to [International Standard for Phytosanitary The relationship between insect pests andMeasures] ISPM 38 (ICPP, 2017) for seed pest terminology. Seed-borne pests are those that can be carried by seeds either externally or internally, more seeds is becoming an increasing concern,or less deeply, and which may or may not be transmitted to plants growing from these seeds. The expression seed is a pathway defines the pests that can be transmitted by seed directly to plants, or can be transferred to the especially in an environment of changingenvironment and can then infest neighbouring plants or further cultivated crops in the area. For each seed-borne pest, scientific papers are collated as climate, which is rapidly altering pestfar as possible to verify whether the pests can be transmitted/transferred. If scientific knowledge clearly shows that the answer is no, the conclusion distribution worldwide. is that seed is not a pathway. If the answer is clearly yes under natural conditions, the conclusion is that seed is a pathway. There is a grey area between the two where the answer is uncertain, and the conclusion in this case is that the seed pathway has not been proven. An argument is always On the Origin and Purpose of the ISTAgiven to explain the uncertainty: transmission may be proven, but only Reference Pest Listartificially, or no research has been found, or there is no definitive evidence, ISTA has a long history in publishing key resources on seed-borne pests, likeor the results are contradictory (Fig. 2B). It is important to distinguish the successive editions and supplements of the book An Annotated List ofbetween all these cases, which must reflect the reality of the scientific Seed-Borne Diseases, aimed at documenting pests infecting seeds (Noble etknowledge.al., 1958; Noble and Richardson, 1968; Richardson, 1979, 1981, 1983, 1990). The last version was enriched with references published up to DecemberIn its current version (v14, Jan 2025; www.seedtest.org/en/services-header/1986 and covered 385 plant species (Richardson, 1990). The aim of the ISTA tools/seed-health-committee/ista-reference-pest-list.html), the ISTA-RPL SEED TESTING INTERNATIONAL OCTOBER 2025 11'