Between the hammer and the anvil: how the combined effect of global warming and the non-native common slider could threaten the European pond turtle

Abstract

Ballast water is a leading vector for the introduction of aquatic invasive species worldwide and, once a novel species is established, regional ballast water exchange between ports can accelerate secondary spread. The importance of shipping induced invasions in the Laurentian Great Lakes has resulted in policies that require more stringent ballast water treatment standards for transoceanic shipping than is required of ships operating regionally within the Great Lakes. As a result, ballast water discharges within the Great Lakes are not well regulated, primarily because of the challenge of treating the high volumes of water carried by vessels that are confined to the waters of the Great Lakes. We used a discrete-time Markov chain model on a network with annual time-steps to simulate ballast water management scenarios at high-priority ports in the Great Lakes shipping network for two potential invaders, golden mussel (Limnoperna fortunei) and monkey goby (Neogobius fluviatilis). We chose high-priority ports by using graph-theoretic network analysis techniques to calculate six network centrality metrics for 151 ports in the network. Ports scoring high in network centrality scores have more ties with other ports or are positioned within the network such that they potentially have greater influence over the secondary spread of aquatic invasive species than other ports. We simulated secondary spread scenarios where hypothetical ballast water treatment was implemented at the top twenty ranked ports in each network centrality metric, as well as the top twenty busiest ports by ship arrivals. The results of each scenario were compared to a scenario where no management action was taken. Simulated secondary spread for both golden mussel and monkey goby resulted in significantly reduced infestation probabilities (p < 0.001) under all management scenarios when compared to unmanaged spread scenarios. Management at ports with inwardly directed ties to other ports reduced infestations by the greatest amount compared to other management scenarios; 65.4% for golden mussel and 74.6% for monkey goby. The indegree centrality of ports in the Great Lakes was found to be an important factor in governing secondary spread. Here we show that prioritized management, like high volume shore based treatment systems based on network centrality, is a potentially effective strategy for impeding the secondary spread of new or localized invasive species in the Great Lakes.

Investigating the Current and Future Co-Occurrence of Ambrosia artemisiifolia and Ophraella communa in Europe through Ecological Modelling and Remote Sensing Data Analysis

“…Invasive alien species (IAS) are a topic of major importance in many research areas, because of the countless implications they have on environment and human activities. IAS can alter ecosystem functioning by replacing, competing, or directly preying upon native species [1,2,3,4]. IAS can have a detrimental impact on agriculture, livestock farming, and, sometimes, human health [5,6,7], with significant impacts in terms of both social and economic costs for managing strategies [8,9,10,11,12].…”

Forecasting the spread associated with climate change in Eastern Europe of the invasive Asiatic flea beetle, Luperomorpha xanthodera (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae)

“…Further, all predictors were projected into an Equal Area Projection (WGS84 -Cylindrical Equal Area), to correct for any latitudinal bias (Brown, 2014); spatial jack-knife was set at 5 replicates per parameter and 3 spatial groups were created. Models were calibrated for both primary and secondary range localities of this species, a technique used to improve performance of predictions and reduce uncertainties (Broennimann & Guisan, 2008) when modelling the distribution of invasive species (Cerasoli et al, 2019;Iannella et al, 2019a;Perret et al, 2019;Rodríguez-Rey et al, 2019).…”

“…The ongoing climate change is one of the most important phenomena shaping the current distribution of species, of both conservation and invasive concern (Bellard et al, 2012;Cerasoli et al, 2019;Wieczynski et al, 2019). The spread of invasive species of all taxa has increased during the last few decades (Seebens et al, 2017).…”

The potentiality of Sentinel-2 to assess the effect of fire events on Mediterranean mountain vegetation

“…Wildfires are currently one of the most important environmental problems as they cause disturbances in ecosystems generating environmental, economic and social costs (Viana-Soto et al 2017). In recent years, Geographic Information System (GIS) techniques are more and more used for biodiversity conservation and human impact issues (Dominy and Duncan 2002;Foody 2008;Iannella et al 2016Iannella et al , 2019aD'Alessandro et al 2018;Di Musciano et al 2020), and revealed interesting results especially when coupled with ecological modelling (Santos et al 2006;Iannella et al 2018;Cerasoli et al 2019;Iannella et al 2019b;Lepcha et al 2019) and remote sensing applications (Kerr and Ostrovsky 2003;Pettorelli et al 2014Pettorelli et al , 2016Wang and Gamon 2019).…”