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... A list of IASs in Croatia is gathered in the Flora Croatica Database [11], within the module "Allochthonous plants", and currently counts 77 invasive foreign taxa (accessed on 25 June 2021). One of the most common species, Erigeron annuus (L.) Pers. is an annual, biennial, or perennial plant species from North America belonging to the Asteraceae family, with erect stems reaching heights of 40-150 cm [12] . The leaves are softly hairy, ovate at the base to linear-lanceolate at the top of the stem, and morphologically quite variable. ...
Alongside the direct destruction of natural habitats and changes in land use, invasive species are considered one of the greatest threats to global biodiversity. Daisy fleabane Erigeron annuus (L.) Pers. is among the most widespread invasive plants in Croatia. Invasions of E. annuus may be aided by morphological variability, which this study investigates. The variability of life traits (stem height, fresh and dry leaf mass, length, width and leaf area, specific leaf area, and leaf dry matter content) was examined among 18 locations throughout Zagreb and Medvednica Mt. Overall, 87 plant specimens and 435 leaves were measured and analysed using univariate and multivariate statistics. Viable populations were recorded in diverse habitat types, mostly with marked human impact. We determined Grime’s CR plant life strategies for all, except for two localities with C/CR plant strategies. Two populations with a more pronounced competitive strategy had high leaf dry matter content, with smaller leaves and medium height stems. Significant differences between the localities were found, with the specific leaf area (SLA) and plant height being the most diverse. Despite its high morphological variability, daisy fleabane had a consistent CSR strategy, which likely enables its widespread invasions across variable habitats.
Bernat Claramunt & Roser Rotchés (Catalan)
Rumen Tomov (Bulgarian), Bernat Claramunt & Roser Rotchés (Catalan), Dinka Matošević
& Božena Mitić (Croatian), Jan Pergl (Czech), Tim Adriaens & Lien Reyserhove (Dutch),
Alien CSI (Finnish), Guillaume Gigot (French)
Riho Marja (Estonian), Alien CSI (Finnish), Guillaume Gigot (French), Alien CSI (German),
The goal of the project LIFE ARTEMIS is to contribute to the reduction of the harmful impacts of invasive alien species on biodiversity by increasing public awareness an by setting up an efficient
early warning and rapid response framework for invasive alien species in forests.
Project objectives to be achieved by the project are:
1. Increase awareness of the general public, in particularly of private forest owners, of threats caused by invasive alien species to forests.
2. Establish an efficient national institutional framework for early detection and rapid response for alien species in forests.
3. Improve the national capacity for early detection of alien species in forests by mobilising and training professionals and volunteers.
Increased awareness of the general public and of specific target audiences will be achieved by running a general national awareness campaign on alien species. Additionally, two campaign showcases will demonstrate approaches to engage volunteers:
(1) An area-based campaign in an urban protected area will work towards engaging volunteers in IAS surveying and eradicating alien plants.
(2) A species-based campaign will mobilise forest owners to detect an alien fungus, which is threatening maple trees, and encourage them remove infected trees to help limit spreading of the disease.
Based on the capacity assessment of existing institutions and members of the civil society, a national institutional framework for early warning and rapid response (EWRR) will be established. Cadres of professionals and volunteers for the EWRR will be established through specific training. As a support tool, a dedicated national information system for alien species will be developed to document and share information on alien species. ... [more] View project (1) Sensing, monitoring and control of sanitation of bark beetle outbreaks with remote sensing methods, e.g. multispectral imagery (satellites and drone images); (2) Risk assessment of conifers bec
ause of bark beetles according to different ecological factors; (3) Improvement of the system for short-term forecasting of spruce bark beetle outbreaks (control traps with pheromone lure) with development and validation of phenological model of spruce bark beetles. ... [more] View project With the adoption of the EU and national Nature conservation legislation (Habitats Directive 1992, Birds Directive 1979, Nature Conservation Act, other Acts and secondary legislation), spatially bo
und to the Natura 2000 sites and aiming to maintain favorable conservation statuses of species, their natural habitats and habitat types, the role of forest practices in Slovenia changed significantly. Contrary to the recent situation, when forest practice itself acted in a conservational manner, it is now forced to implement many new nature conservation recommendations and restrictions, among which some of them are acceptable and some are not. In the benefit of better implementation of the legislation, favorable development of forest ecosystems and greater objectivity in the enforcement of nature conservation measures, the objectives of this project are: 1) to study the distribution of forest habitat types and natural habitats of selected qualifying plant and animal species, 2) assessment and selection of appropriate indicators to be used in valuing conservation status of habitat types and species along with the determination of their critical values, 3) assessment of impacts of sylvicultural and forest-protection measures on the conservation statuses of qualifying species and the determination of suitable ones, 4) assessment of impacts of infrastructural objects (skidding trails) on the conservation statuses of species; and 5) to prepare good practice guidelines and recommendations for forest owners and governmental agencies.
Because of the complexity of the topics, the project is divided into several work-packages. Within the situation analysis (part A), a complete review of existing information and data, concerning habitat types and qualifying plant and animal species, will be made. An inevitable part of this work-package will be a review of potential indicators needed in assessing the conservation status.
The methodological work-package (part B) deals with method-searching. The maps of the actual and the potential distributions of habitat types and selected qualifying species will be made. Additionally, the models for valuing their conservation status will also be developed. The models will be created by using modern methods such as GIS tools, GLM (generalized linear models) methods, machine learning models and multi-criteria evaluation methods. A constituent part of this work-package will be the creation of experimental designs, whose results will help infer the magnitudes of impacts of different silvicultural and forest protection measures and infrastructure objects on the conservation statuses of species.
The synthesis of results (part C) will contain conclusions and written recommendations for forest owners so as to better manage their forestlands to arrive at the favorable conservation statuses of habitat types and qualifying species. Additionally, guidelines for responsible agencies to better set nature conservation measures will also be made. Along with the recommendations, knowledge transfer will be assured through two active workshops in the field (part D), whose significant attendants will be stakeholders. Because these workshops will address real Natura 2000 problems, the team will demonstrate the participatory decision making and conflict management techniques. ... [more] View project To get an insight in the diversity, distribution and ecology of hoverflies and thick-headed flies of Slovenia.
View project December 2013 · Aquatic Conservation Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems
Topmouth gudgeon (Pseudorasbora parva) is widely known as a highly invasive freshwater fish and has expanded from East Asia (native range) to Central Asia, Europe and Northern Africa (introduced range). Although the relationship between the occurrence of P. parva and its habitat conditions remains unclear, information on factors affecting its distribution, especially in its native range, is
... [Show full abstract] important for predicting its expansion.This study provides primary information on the distribution of P. parva in rivers and agricultural canals in northern Kyushu Island, Japan, where the fish is native. Fuzzy habitat preference models (FHPMs) and Random Forests (RF) were applied to link landscape features to the distribution of P. parva based on field observation data collected from two distinct ecoregions, the north-western (NW) and north-eastern (NE) parts of Kyushu Island.The results show a clear habitat preference of P. parva for areas with a lower elevation, a gentler slope and a smaller number of river-to-river connections as general landscape features across the ecoregions. Weak preferences are observed for sites with a higher number of river-to-canal connections, a higher canal network index, a larger area of paddy fields, a larger residential area, more crop fields and fewer forests and orchards. Of these site-specific features, five landscape features – elevation, slope, canal network index, area of paddy fields, and presence of forests and orchards – are identified as the most important features for predicting the distribution of P. parva.The general and specific habitat preference information, as demonstrated in this study, may be important in biogeography and invasion ecology. Further research is needed to accumulate information for a better understanding of the invasion ecology and the design of improved management and control strategies against P. parva. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Read more April 2021 · Journal of Vegetation Science
Questions
The human‐related spread of alien plants has serious environmental and socioeconomic impacts. Therefore, it is important to know which habitats are most threatened by invasion and why. We studied a wide range of European grasslands to assess: (a) which alien species are the most successful invaders in grasslands; (b) how invasion levels differ across European regions (countries or their
... [Show full abstract] parts) and biogeographical regions; and (c) which habitat types are the most invaded.
Location
Europe.
Methods
We selected 97,411 grassland vegetation plots from the European Vegetation Archive (EVA) and assigned a native or alien status to each of the 8,212 vascular plant species found in these plots. We considered only neophytes (alien species introduced after 1500 AD), which we further divided according to their origin. We compared the levels of invasion using relative neophyte richness in the species pool, relative neophyte richness and cover per plot, and percentages of invaded plots among regions and habitats.
Results
Only 536 species, representing 6.5% of all grassland vascular plant species, were classified as neophytes. These were mostly therophytes or hemicryptophytes with low habitat specificity. Most of them were present in very few plots, while only three species were recorded in more than 1% of all plots (Onobrychis viciifolia, Erigeron annuus and Erigeron canadensis). Although invasion levels were generally low, we found more invaded plots in the Boreal and Continental regions. When considering only non‐European neophytes, the Pannonian region was the most invaded. Among different grassland habitats, sandy grasslands were most invaded, and alpine and oromediterranean grasslands least invaded.
Conclusions
In general, natural and semi‐natural European grasslands have relatively low levels of neophyte invasions compared with human‐made habitats or alluvial forests, as well as with grasslands on other continents. The most typical neophytes invading European grasslands are species with broad ecological niches. Read more January 2015 · Journal of the Japanese Society of Revegetation Technology
Chinese tallow (Triadica sebifera (L.) Small) is an alien species, and a major invasive species introduced from Southern China, and has invaded coastal prairie and wetland forests of the southeastern U. S. Coastal wetland and riparian forest ecosystem shows their deterioration and decline of from anthropogenic disturbances from the 1900s. Expansion of invasive species including T. sebifera has
... [Show full abstract] been explosive and regarded as a stimulator of decease in their biodiversity. T. sebifera grows in a wide range of forest type under moist, dry and saline condition, and forms homogeneous community. Because T. sebifera has ability to resprout, continued control or management at early stage are suggested. The spread of this species is likely limited by low temperature. However, the increase of the potential range is expected under changes in environmental condition in lowland areas. This review introduce management and control plan for Chinese tallow trees in several states of the southeastern United States. And also, growth characteristics in relation to their invasion are introduced. Read more Article
Full-text available
January 2009 · Journal of Landscape Ecology
19th century regulation works on the River Danube played significant role in the formation of the present shapes of its islands. Since then, river branches have become slow-flowing caused by their separation from main stream and are affected by continuous silting. This process has been speeding up successional changes and giving ways to invasive alien species. This had happened also to the Island
... [Show full abstract] of Koppánymonostor, situated near Komarom town. Military maps of the 1780's represent one big and three small islands, all of them covered by forests. Forests on two islands were cut down later and meadows appeared with some smaller swamp patches. Most significant changes of the island occurred in the second half of the 19th century, when its bank has been stoned, its branch was separated by dams and the smaller islands were connected to the bigger one. During that time, vegetation of the island was dominated by natural alluvial forests, except for its central part where mowed meadows and two orchards were situated. The Danube had shaped its bank itself dynamically in the part of Koppánymonostor. After a meander tum, the basis of the island was silted caused by the slower flowing and this bank had been continuously changing till the river regulation works in the second half of the 19th century. After the stoning of the riverside (for better navigation), some of the transformation processes like the successional changings were speeding up. Because of these events the creation of new Danube islands became impossible, so the conservation of habitats on the existing islands is priority assessment of nature conservation. View full-text Last Updated: 07 Mar 2022
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