How Effective Are the Protected Areas of the Natura 2000 Network in Halting Biological Invasions? A Case Study in Greece

Abstract

Invasive alien plant species represent an important threat to various protected areas of the world, and this threat expected to be further enhanced due to climate change. This is also the case for the most important network of protected areas in Europe, the Natura 2000 network. In the current study we evaluated the distribution pattern of alien plant taxa across selected continental and insular Natura 2000 sites in Greece and their potential spread 15 years since first being recorded in the field. A total of seventy-three naturalized plant taxa were recorded in the 159 sites under study. At the site level and regardless of the habitat group, the ratio of invaded areas increased between the two monitoring campaigns. An increase in the ratio of invaded plots was also detected for all habitat groups, except for grassland and riparian—wetland habitats. Precipitation during the dry quarter of the year was the factor that mainly controlled the occurrence and spread of alien plant taxa regardless of the site and habitat group. It is reasonable to say that the characterization of an area as protected may not be sufficient without having implemented the proper practices for halting biological invasions.

Natura 2000 Areas, Road, Railway, Water, and Ecological Networks May Provide Pathways for Biological Invasion: A Country Scale Analysis

“…This indicates that biological invasions are already affecting not only ecological corridors but also core areas with high ecological sensitivity in Hungary [16], similar to other European countries [2,3,[42][43][44]. Therefore, targeted management practices (e.g., mowing, grazing, and mechanical control) are required to suppress the populations of invasive species and to maintain ecosystem services within protected areas [45][46][47].…”

Understanding the role of biodiversity in the climate, food, water, energy, transport and health nexus in Europe

“…Transport also influences biodiversity through the transfer of alien species. For example, alien species are assumed to have arrived as stowaways (Lambdon et al, 2008) and highly disturbed habitats like grasslands with close proximity to transportation networks experience more propagule pressure (Christopoulou et al, 2021). The negative influence of biodiversity on transport include damage from wild boars that cause local erosion in areas connected to roads (Mauri et al, 2019) and the protection of natural areas preventing further development of transport infrastructure .…”

Invasive Alien Plant Species—Raising Awareness of a Threat to Biodiversity and Ecological Connectivity (EC) in the Adriatic-Ionian Region

“…As Vicente et al [170] have shown, invasive populations of perennial alien plants pose a major threat to the establishment and maintenance of functional ecological linkages between areas of high conservation value. Species with such high dispersal potential and a competitive nature may exploit the establishment of corridors and use them as pathways for further dispersal into areas of high conservation value [52,171,172]. In such cases, the design of ecological corridors should be redesigned [172].…”