BookPDF Available

A field guide to invasive alien species in European forests

Authors:
A preview of the PDF is not available
... ;https://doi.org/10.1101https://doi.org/10. /2024 4 levels typically consists of dates of relevant life cycle stages observed in other regions (e.g., EFSA et al. 2020), or the months or seasons when these stages are typically observed (Flajšman et al. 2019). However, this type of information can overlook significant inter-regional and interannual differences resulting from the natural variation of drivers of phenology, such as temperature and precipitation (Godoy et al. 2009). ...
Preprint
Full-text available
Early detection of invasive species is crucial to prevent biological invasions. To increase the success of detection efforts, it is often essential to know the phenological stages in which the invasive species are found. This includes knowing, for example, if invasive insect species are in their adult phase, invasive plants are flowering, or invasive mammals have finished their hibernation. Unfortunately, this kind of information is often unavailable or is provided at very coarse temporal and spatial resolutions. On the other hand, opportunistic records of the location and timing of observations of these stages are increasingly available from biodiversity data repositories. Here, we demonstrate how to apply these data for predicting the timing of phenological stages of invasive species. The predictions are made across Europe, at a daily temporal resolution, including in near real time and for multiple days ahead. We apply this to detectability-relevant phenological stages of four well-known invasive species: the freshwater jellyfish, the geranium bronze butterfly, the floating primrose-willow, and the garden lupine. Our approach uses machine learning and statistical-based algorithms to identify the set of temporal environmental conditions (e.g., temperature values and trends, precipitation, snow depth, and wind speed) associated with the observation of each phenological stage, while accounting for spatial and temporal biases in recording effort. Correlation between predictions from models and the actual timing of observations often exceeded values of 0.9. However, some inter-taxa variation occurred, with models trained on several thousands of observation records performing consistently better than those based on a few hundred records. The analysis of daily predictions also allowed mapping EU-wide regions with similar phenological dynamics (i.e., ‘phenoregions’). Our results underscore the significant potential of opportunistic biodiversity observation data in developing models capable of predicting and forecasting species phenological stages across broad spatial extents. This information has the potential to significantly improve decision-making in invasion surveillance and monitoring activities.
... Early detection of this alien species from Anatolian natural habitats may play an important role in the conservation of plant biodiversity in Colchis sector of Euxine province. S. japonica is reported as invasive in different states of USA (Feldhaus et al., 2013) and Europe (Essl, 2005;Veenvliet et al., 2019) means its non-native range extends far from its native range in eastern Asia. ...
Article
Full-text available
Çalışmanın amacı: Bu çalışma Türkiye’nin yabancı bitkilerine katkı sağlamayı amaçlamaktadır. Çalışma alanı: Kuzeydoğu Anadolu (Kemalpaşa/Artvin)’nde yapraklı ormanlarda dere boyları ve yol kenarları. Materyal ve yöntem: Bu çalışmada kullanılan materyaller, 2020 ve 2021 yıllarında devam eden bir proje çalışması sürecinde toplanmıştır. İlgili literatür kullanılarak teşhis edilen örnekler Karadeniz Teknik Üniversitesi KATO ve KTUB Herbaryumlarına konulmuştur. Temel Sonuçlar: Spiraea japonica L. f. (Rosaceae), doğal habitatlardan Türkiye florası için yeni bir yabancı tür olarak rapor edilmektedir. Araştırma vurguları: Bu tür, yaygın şekilde Avrupa ve Türkiye’de süs bitkisi kullanılmakta olan Japon Keçisakalı’nın KD Anadolu’nun doğal habitatlarına yerleştiğini ortaya koymaktadır
... 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. ...
Article
Full-text available
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.
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Creating of duff is a way for improving the pure coniferous plots condition. The outskirts from conifers-compatible shrubs of genus Hamamelis L., Deutzia Thunb. and Philadelphus L. have been proposed.
Article
Full-text available
Purpose of the Review One of the major threats to tree health, and hence the resilience of forests and their provision of ecosystem services, is new and emerging pests. Therefore, forest health monitoring is of major importance to detect invasive, emerging and native pest outbreaks. This is usually done by foresters and forest health experts, but can also be complemented by citizen scientists. Here, we review the use of citizen science for detection and monitoring, as well as for hypothesis-driven research and evaluation of control measures as part of forest pest surveillance and research. We then examine its limitations and opportunities and make recommendations on the use of citizen science for forest pest monitoring. Recent Findings The main opportunities of citizen scientists for forest health are early warning, early detection of new pests, monitoring of impact of outbreaks and scientific research. Each domain has its own limitations, opportunities and recommendations to follow, as well as their own public engagement strategies. The development of new technologies provides many opportunities to involve citizen scientists in forest pest monitoring. To enhance the benefits of citizen scientists’ inclusion in monitoring, it is important that they are involved in the cocreation of activities. Summary Future monitoring and research may benefit from tailor-made citizen science projects to facilitate successful monitoring by citizen scientists and expand their practice to countries where the forest health sector is less developed. In this sense, citizen scientists can help understand and detect outbreaks of new pests and avoid problems in the future.
Article
Full-text available
Invasive alien species (IAS) are a key driver of global biodiversity loss. Reducing their spread and impact is a target of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG target 15.8) and of the EU IAS Regulation 1143/2014. The use of citizen science offers various benefits to alien species' decision-making and to society , since public participation in research and management boosts awareness, engagement and scientific literacy and can reduce conflict in IAS management. We report the results of a survey on alien species citizen science initiatives within the framework of the European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) Action Alien-CSI. We gathered metadata on 103 initiatives across 41 countries, excluding general biodiversity reporting portals, spanning from 2005 to 2020, offering the most comprehensive account of alien species citizen science initiatives on the continent to date. We retrieved information on project scope, policy relevance, engagement methods, data capture, data quality and data management, methods and technologies applied and performance indicators such as the number of records coming from projects, the numbers of participants and publications. The 103 initiatives were unevenly distributed geographically , with countries with a tradition of citizen science showing more active projects. The majority of projects were contributory and were run at a national scale, targeting the general public, alien plants and insects, and terrestrial ecosystems. These factors of project scope were consistent between geographic regions. A peer-reviewed open-access journal NeoBiota Veronica Price-Jones et al. / NeoBiota 78: 1-24 (2022) 2 Most projects focused on collecting species presence or abundance data, aiming to map presence and spread. As 75% of the initiatives specifically collected data on IAS of Union Concern, citizen science in Europe is of policy relevance. Despite this, only half of the projects indicated sustainable funding. Nearly all projects had validation in place to verify species identifications. Strikingly, only about one third of the projects shared their data with open data repositories such as the Global Biodiversity Information Facility or the European Alien Species Information Network. Moreover, many did not adhere to the principles of FAIR data management. Finally, certain factors of engagement, feedback and support, had significant impacts on project performance, with the provision of a map with sightings being especially beneficial. Based on this dataset, we offer suggestions to strengthen the network of IAS citizen science projects and to foster knowledge exchange among citizens, scientists, managers, policy-makers, local authorities, and other stakeholders.
Bernat Claramunt & Roser Rotchés (Catalan)
  • Rumen Tomov
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
Riho Marja (Estonian), Alien CSI (Finnish), Guillaume Gigot (French), Alien CSI (German),