Invasive Alien Species - Science topic

The method for collecting sand around Prosopis juliflora roots to study allelopathic compound secretion is informed by established research in rhizosphere sampling and allelopathy studies. Key sources include:

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Parner is found. I have already got a letter of agreement.

FYI, that photo on youir question is not Herpetoichthys, but is Myrichthys

Many of here offered examples are wrong. Synantropic means introduced, acclimatized and naturalized for alochtonous species, and widespread on secondary habitats for autochtonous species.

I think this is one of the methods used to control Prunus serotina (in Germany). Here an article of a great environmental NGO: https://schleswig-holstein.nabu.de/natur-und-landschaft/nabu-schutzgebiete/management/03415.html The author compares different methods, and recommends the method (he uses the term "Folienabdeckung".) The author's contact is mentioned at the bottom of the article.

And here an Austrian master thesis from BOKU' botany institute (https://boku.ac.at/dib/institut-fuer-botanik-botany) about Fallopia japonica (NOT a tree - but tough ...) https://www.neobiota.steiermark.at/cms/dokumente/12784568_156567719/d2c91a10 /200203%20Master_Loibner%20Adecken%20Staudenkn%C3%B6terich.pdf Good luck!

I enjoy it. Hence, the research.

As far as the traps concern I recommend using completely randomized block design in setting your traps.

As for surveying the Lymantria dispar, my suggestion is to go for line transects.

As for burlap issue, I would suggest to go for some baits in parallel.

Thank you so much,

One problem is the North American Photinus are extremely difficult to rear from egg to adult. It takes a year so requires quite a bit of dedication. However using Michael's method of pairing a male and a female would be a good approach if you just want to see what the first or second instar looks like. They often die after the first or second instar . Rearing Photinus has been a bit of a Holy Grail in the Firefly World. Some of the other genera are not nearly as difficult to rear. Photinus from egg through the larval instars to adult are difficult! But there is someone out there who will figure it out and hopefully tell the rest of us.

Invasive species can cause great economic and environmental harm to the new area. Not all non-native species are invasive. For example, most of the food crops grown in the United States, including popular varieties of wheat, tomatoes, and rice, are not native to the region.

Health care appears to be well represented by both genders. Biological positions are being compromised since the beginning of the ongoing financial crises. I believe this is making it difficult for any new entrants to environment health related jobs, not any gender in particular.

I think you do not need to rear this insect on the artificial diet. This insect pest can be reared well on healthy tomato plants (2-3 weeks old) using 50 x 50 x 50 cages with replacing the plants every week or 10 days.

Hello Susan; I'm very curious to know what finally came of your question. Did you learn what you needed to know? Were you able to act on it? Best regards, Jim Des Lauriers

Before addressing the proposed topic, which incidentally, we have been studying for years with other pandemics and epizootics in my laboratory, it should be noted that the hypotheses to understand their origin in humans have a lot to do with the thought of the landscape ecology.

These hypotheses, structured as landscape sciences do, but under the thought of rhizomatic ecology, tell us about how all animals are connected; hypotheses that serve to remind us of our animal condition and that shout at us, because they cannot say it louder, that as much as we live in artificial environments, we continue and will continue to be animals on the planet; a planet called earth which is our holistic environment.

Regardless of the origin or the time we have been together, some animals with others, the pandemic is the result of a zoonosis that may well be direct or indirect, in this case, as of May 2020, the way in which we are transmitted: Hypothesis 1: bats transported to the Guangzhou market were the original source for direct transmission of CoVid-19 to humans; Hypothesis 2: Pangolins (the most trafficked animal on the illegal market worldwide and widely consumed in China and other Asian regions) or a domestic animal such as dromedary or cat, could have been infected with CoVid-19 by bats and be the intermediary vectors of the virus to reach humans; Hypothesis 3: Pangolins could have directly infected the human. As can be seen, the crazy conspiracy idea that it was a virus created in the laboratory by either North Americans or Chinese and deliberately released or accidentally escaped into the environment is discarded biochemically.

Now, to understand this pandemic, we must remember that rhizomatic ecology tells us that humans are immersed in an ecosystem (holon) within larger ecosystems until they reach the Holo (Earth), and that each system has subsystems that directly influence adjacent or remote holons.

Bats are a very special group of mammals because their ability to fly allows them to have very high thermal regulation. Its temperature rises a lot during flight and drops considerably during rest. Their metabolism is more intense than that of the rest of the mammals and their immune system is much stronger, in such a way that they can have viruses, bacteria and parasites without causing apparent damage, but transport them long distances (zoocoria). The tangle of the rhizome extends indefinitely since where the bat reaches, it can infect endemic organisms such as the pangolin or dromedary, or common domestic animals, such as cats. It can even infect people when they are crowded into a market to trade and move more from there; huddled in a refugee camp or crowding into migratory groups to escape environmental catastrophes, dictatorships, famine, for example.

The natural migrations of fauna are becoming more extensive every day in the sense that the borders and the breeding or feeding sites are widening, covering more geographic area, interacting more with humans. A human population from a site that, if it did not previously have contact with said animal, can be infected more easily than people from populations that have lived with this animal for centuries. Likewise, consequences of the recent climate change and the illegal trafficking of species is the favor of this dispersion of pathogens, since the trafficked animals lack a clinical certificate, are transported in poor conditions, increase their stress, and therefore are more susceptible to suffer more pathogens and infect the fauna that accompanies them on their journey and final destination, including humans, of course, since we are also accompanying fauna. Climate change, on the other hand, encourages migratory behaviors in animals that are increasingly longer in their days of searching for places to reproduce, feed, hibernate, etc. The rhizome of the Earth has no territorial beginning or end, lacks a center and has nodes with vanishing lines and nodes with convergence lines, which can change, appear more or disappear; They can also modify their arms and nodal extensions, but it will always remind us that the whole planet is oneself and that humanity belongs to this planet as well as a bat or a pangolin, caring for them is caring for ourselves.

Avoiding the introduction and translocation of biological species is a pending subject of landscape ecology that now tries to give us the same teaching as in the time of the black plague (1347-1353), of cholera (1817), of the Spanish flu ( 1918) or the Asian flu (1957), the numerous cholera pandemics (1961, 1991, 1992 ...), swine flu (1976, 2009 ...), avian flu (1878, 1997, 2003, 2005, 2006 ...) and of course, by CoVid (2003-2004).

Dear colleagues,

Many thanks for your kind support.

I will go through the papers and links you have provided.

Best regards,

Giorgio

If we are talking about "alien species", it seems clear to me that the "origin" is to be understood in a (bio) geographical sense. European examples are, among others, the Opuntia and Agave (American tropics), the invasive Robinia pseudoacacia (United States and Canada), Ailanthus (SE Asia). The ecological conditions for the survival and expansion of aliens must fall within the ecological potential of the invader

GBIF provides data worldwide https://www.gbif.org/

Look also to previous analogous question's answers

Hi João ,

The crab rings are widely used in brackish waters of India, especially from south-west coast for mud crab. Since this fishery is sustenance level, reports is very limited. Currently, we working on traps and pots of India, a review article on this underway. I'll share you once its published.

Best wishes,

Chinna

This picture shared by Mayor of Antalya/Turkey. For follower's interest

You need to start with an inventory: which invasive plants are where? Invasive species spread initially along roads and trails, so surveying these on foot and recording location, abundance, elevation, and canopy cover for each invasive species found is a good way to start. However, it is the species that can spread away from paths into undisturbed habitats that are of most concern, so you also need transects away from the roads and trails at intervals. Michael Padmanaba's study in Java shows a possible approach (attached).

You need to understand the basics of what Fst actually means. Fst is the average inbreeding of the subpopulations relative tot the total population, and it is calculated on the basis of the (average) expected heterozygosity of the subpopulations (Hs) and the expected heterozygosity of the total population (Ht), like Fst=(Ht-Hs)/Ht=1-Hs/Ht. In other words, it is the standardized variance in heterozygosity among subpopulations. Nothing more, nothing less. Under very specific circumstances, it can tell us something about gene flow. Don't make the mistake of interpreting every Fst as a measure of gene flow: only when you a wide range of strict assumptions are met (which they never are), can you tell anything about gene flow from FST. See Whitlock & McCauley 1999 (Heredity). When your studied populations are not in migration-drift equilibrium, FST will strongly mislead you in terms of gene flow.

If 98% of the variation is found within subpopulations, this means there is extreme genetic differentiation, nearly complete fixation among subpopulations.

It would be better to show us the actual data, not your intepretation of gene flow. A good start would be hierarchical F-statistics and basic summary statistics (Fis, Fit, Fst, He per population, Ho per population, He of the total population).

Dear Ankur,

Please have a look at these useful links.

Good luck!



I transformed the data and used an ordinal logit regression in the end, which supported the findings of a GLM that I did earlier on. Hoping that this is still a sound option!

Thanks for your advice :-)

With invasive ants, it is common to observe seasonal variation in the spatial extent of a colony: they may not move far from the nest, but they can extend the nest to get closer to where they want to go. This should be taken into account when deciding of new treatment strategies.

For example in the Argentine ants:

Heller, N. E., & Gordon, D. M. (2006). Seasonal spatial dynamics and causes of nest movement in colonies of the invasive Argentine ant (Linepithema humile). Ecological Entomology, 31(5), 499-510.

This kind of question is a bit tricky as it tends to answer itself. Something is successful because it is successful. Therefore any aspect of it is seen to be successful as well. Success 'explains' success.

Of course! I agree with Ruben!

Regards

Thank you all of you

Dear Philip thanks for your interest in the Channid Snakeheads of Europe. They could enter, spread, invade.  I have been reading up on them. But its not too late to stop them if bans on aquarium trade, live-food trade, aquaculture etc are put in place and implemented. They could spread in the southern half of Europe - in the cold-winter eastern half Channa argus did not spread - even though the USSR russians made many attempts (even in Slovak and Czech republics). So fortunately the situation is not like in the US.

Keep fish'n,

Stam 

 Showing the damage caused by invasive species can educate and convince many people.

I work as technician in the conservation project LimnoPirineus (http://www.lifelimnopirineus.eu/en). We are removing invasive fish from eight high mountain lakes in the Pyrenees. After three years of work we are getting some nice results such as the recovering of the natural transparency and the increase of abundance or the natural recolonization of many species of amphibians, invertebrates and crustaceans.

I have experienced that showing these milestones to the local people and pupils in local schools and high schools is convincing most of the audience.

Also, I have to recognize that a few people is not convinced anyway. However, I can see a very good progress at community scale.

Since the information you provide suggests that the invasive species is not a target of your project, then not releasing it back into the wild will not bias your results.  I am sure your project is guided by ethical rules (established by your host institution), but the Ethics Board may not have specified what must be done with bycatch or indeed injured target species.  It is in the best interests of the park for invasive species to be eradicated, but as individuals your group might have issues with euthanising animals on an ad-hoc basis.  My approach would be to discuss first with the park authorities - perhaps by highlighting this question, it will at least draw attention to the issue of invasive species in the park (and might even be adopted as a pilot eradication project) if these invasives do indeed have a serious negative impact on the native fauna/flora.

Good

Lernaea cyprinacea has a cosmopolitan distribution, but has been introduced to Australia and N and S America :)

Also the snakes I metioned from Spain meet your requirements.

Benabdallah:

You may look at this link for insights:

Best

Syed

Hello Anthony:

Check the Gen Bank  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genbank/ You will find many COI sequences data for these insect species:

Synoeca surinama isolate 3 cytochrome oxidase subunit I (COI) gene, partial cds; mitochondrial

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nuccore/KJ829543.1  for Synoeca surinama

Streblognathus peetersi voucher CASENT0260277 cytochrome oxidase subunit I (COI) gene, partial cds; mitochondrial

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nuccore/KU504917.1  

Harpegnathos saltator unplaced genomic scaffold scaffold156, whole genome shotgun sequence

Regards

Luis Miguel

Invasive European carp in the Murray-Darling Basin Australia have become an important food source for native fish-eating waterbirds such as cormorants, herons, pelicans and darters. High abundance of carp after flooding has led to increased breeding activity of some of these birds.

This species is absent in Latvia, consider http://leb.daba.lv/40-ju1.pdf 

Michael Usher is spot on with that recommendation. Simberloff has some good articles about the general theme of eradications of invasive species.  Here are some articles about this theme that I am fond of.

thank you William F. Hansen; I think I should rephrase my question into: 'are open pioneer communities more susceptible to alien plant species', and I think the answer is definately yes and it will not be difficult finding publications on this.

thank you Andrew Paul McKenzie Pegman, also interesting to see that H. radicata is invasive in wetlands in NZ, it is native, here in Europe, on dry, sandy, phosphor depleted grasslands and meadows.

Hello Radomir:

In this list of endangered species of amphibians from Colombia you can find information about the poison dart frogs.

and the resolution that protect them ( Res. 0192 de 2014) Ministerio del Medio Ambiente

 I estimate that you will also have to take into account the scale and dimensions of the riparian environment. In Patagonia rivers must have similar dimensions (flows and hydrological regimes) to those of Serbia. In our case, it was necessary to adjust the shapes of the pictures to avoid edge effect and to resize them (initially they were larger than the geoforms on which the pictures were established, and this relationship with riparian vegetation is fundamental). That is why defining a scale beforehand and recognizing the influence of geomorphology on invasion is indispensable. Then you can make pictures or transects. Due to the discreet condition of our patches of vegetation in Patagonia, we chose pictures

Sascha:

Have a look at this linkfor insights:

Best

Syed

Hi,

in South Africa the species was introduced in the mid-20th century. Here is what I have from our literature: ca 125 grams from a Guide to Parrots of the World by Juniper and Parr (1998). 

Here are two ringing records from South Africa. Just contact the Animal Demography Unit (SAFRING) from the University of Cape Town, South Africa for those measurements.

The second link is to a paper but, it might not give measurements.

Understanding invasion of undesirable, alien species should move away from species, but look at management of landscapes (and seascapes) instead. The point is made in other Q&As on RG. This position starts from the observation that invasive plants cluster in particular landscapes (e.g. tropical Kwazulu-Natal, RSA; wetlands within the temperate zone  and much more rare in adjacent ones. The second issue is that eradication/control efforts directed at species are usually ineffective. I only know two exceptions to the latter.

Hi Diederik,

Maybe this paper could be helpful: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/301740972_The_generic_impact_scoring_system_GISS_a_standardized_tool_to_quantify_the_impacts_of_alien_species

Dear leon,

Yes, need to develop research group on invasive alien species to conserve environment.

Temperature and particularly soil moisture are the main factors limiting potential spread of the beetle into new areas. According to Fleming (1972), the Japanese beetle is adapted to regions were the mean soil temperature is between 17.5 and 27.5^oC during the summer, and above -9.4^oC in the winter.

Fleming WE, 1972. Biology of the Japanese beetle. USDA Technical Bulletin 1449, Washington, DC.

It indeed does not mean that there are mixed populations but these pictures are made by hobbyists that use it to illustrate the observation. Most were probably unaware that  male and female plants exist in this species. I'll post a question on the forum, it might very well be that some are aware and know for their local population.

François's suggestion (exclusion cages) has actually been used extensively in prairie and alpine meadow ecosystems for grazing evaluation by (relatively) large hebivores (e.g. Mangado et al., Pastagens e Forragens 21: 579-583 (2000); Biondini et al., Ecological Applications 8(2): 469-479 (1998); Bedia & Busqué, Grass and Forage Science 68(2): 297–312 (2013). However I understand that your problem is not really that, as you mention only alien (large) species. If properly set, exclosures would, by default, exclude anything above a certain size. But if you want to differentiate natural from alien fauna, unless that difference is also by size it's gonna be difficult. And, of course, you still have the problem of small grazers that get in. In Pyrenean pastures, for example, grazing by grasshoppers has been found to be on a pair with cattle at certain times of the year. Comparison of data from exclosures with large (no cattle but allowing insects) and small ("no nothing" that walks or flies) mesh size can show this, albeit not without trouble (e.g. shadow effects and others).

And, if the vegetation you want to evaluate is larger (e.g. taller trees), exclosures can be a problem to set up and maintain.

I might suggest a different approach: a posteriori selection. You might perhaps select a (large) number of plots, set up full exclosures for reference and control, but also set automatic camera surveillance. In this way you could evaluate the pressure of the species of interest by recording how long they would be in the plots, and later on correlate the measured density of epìphytes to the number/frequency/length of visits by target grazers on each plot.

HTH. Regards

Hi Joop

Maybe this will help: I just uploaded our recent paper on Caprella tuberculata in the Dutch part of the North Sea. It includes several references on Caprellids in this area.

Wim Vader responded to our paper and he presented an unpublished record of this species on the light vessel Noordhinder half a century earlier: Vader, W. 2015. Enkele amphipoden van het lichtschip Noordhinder in 1956. Het Zeepaard 75 (2) 53-54.

Dear Khaled, try to send it to the Turkish Journal of Zoology. Publication has no cost, and the Journal has free access. It will be published online. in 2016. http://journals.tubitak.gov.tr/zoology/index.htm#

Although not very high, it has an impact factor of ca. 0.6. 

Have a look. Sometimes the point is to simply publish your results if their are original and shall be accessed easily by a wider community.

best regards,

alexandra

The use of physical removal techniques such as netting, electrofishing, etc., will most definitely not yield 100% effectiveness in the removal of any fish species, but they can be useful tools in beginning the process. By setting up a rigorous removal schedule using various techniques, and alternating your approach every time you will be surprised as to how many fish can be removed. Perhaps these techniques coupled with a campaign for the harvest of these fish by anglers, water drawdowns, etc., can be effective. What predator fish do you have in the water body? Is there anyway to augment there population to increase predation on pumpkinseed? Not being familiar with all the native freshwater fish in France, are there any native species that may be staunch competitors with the pumpkinseed? If so, the bolstering of those fish along with all the removal techniques expressed here and by others, may give you a boost in trying to control and potentially eradicate. Success is dependent on size of water body, ability to dedicate time and resources to the goal, angler compliance, as well as educating the public or stakeholders about the dangers these fish pose to native ecology. For example, if you are successful in the removal of these fish, it will be important to inform the stakeholders, public, anglers, etc. about the risks they pose in order to deter reintroduction.

Just my 2 cents.

Dear Lee,

I have some individuals for you (nymphs and adults). Where can I send it to you?

Regards,

New results and new localities have now been published.

Any traits that may be considered r-selected (take a good look at r/K selection theory, it may be a little bit old-fashion ecology but it is very clarifying) can be considered as a good strategy for an "invasive species". Early sexual maturity means reproducing faster than late sexual maturity species, therefore it is a good trait for a species to overcome a native species and thus become really invasive by establishing successfully a population in the new habitat, whether or not it competes for resources with the native species. Any ecology book will serve you as a reference, but Ricciardi & Rasmussen's (1998) paper, mentioned in Dr. Danilo Russo's answer, specifically mentions this trait and also provides references (see, e.g., their Table 1). 

Hello Siyasanga,

although a little late, the information might still be useful. You can find a discussion on the Penaeus / Litopenaeus problem on

After reading that discussion, I turned back to saying Penaeus. This site may as well offer some information on the invasive potential of penaid shrimps.

Best wishes,

Kai

Dear Melissa, Wegmann et al. (2007) recommend to apply bait to the forest canopy, which is not available to crabs, and consumption by rats of bait placed in the forest canopy has been observed. I think land crabs having about the same size of rats occupy the same ecological niche (opportunistic omnivores) and are impossible to exclude from baits applied to the ground. To exclude Birgus, metal tube traps may work. Good luck, Robert

VEHICLES: The issue is not when you get seeds ON YOU  while WITHIN the protected area, but people coming INTO protected areas with weed seeds on their VEHICLES, especially off-road vehicles.   Seeds on vehicles is what is spreading a new weed Saharan mustard across millions of acres of our desert iwthin only a decade., that you can see at http://www.ecoseeds.com/mustards.html

ROAD SIDES. How you manage the road sides at the edges of protected areas, and roads going through protected areas, and trails, railroads edges, and domesticated animal manures?  These alll help spread weeds into protected areas very much faster than any seeds carried in by humans on their clothing or shoes.   Even areas that have been protected 150 years ago like Yellowstone National Park or Yosemite National Park, weeds can travel along roadsides or by cattle in their manures, into those areas very easily. 

INTENTIONALLY SOWN SEEDS. Also intentionally sown exotic seeds, like along roadsides or in nearby agricultural areas, also can be a huge source of weeds.  If you look at my mile-by-mile survey of the western USA that I did in 1997, it was not weeds that were the big problem in most States, but intentionally sown exotic seeds along the roadsides or escapes from nearby exotic-sown pastures, at http://www.ecoseeds.com/megatransect.html. 

UNDERSTORY SPATIALLY EXTINCT OR DAMAGED, SO NOW VULNERABLE.  In 2015 most semi-arid to arid lands across the planet, the native plant understory is spatially extinct or severely damaged, to the degree that bare open spaces create vacancies for any new exotic plant to get established.  

That is how California became the most weedy spot on the planet 150 years ago, the cattle ate every bit of native under story during the 1864-65 drought, causing spatial extinction of the native under story, and the resulting bare land got colonized with close to 100% exotic cover within a few decades.

DO A VEGETATION TRANSECT.  If you have less than 100% local native cover (including native plant thatch) in your vegetation understory, then those areas will be eventually invaded by one or more weeds in the future, as open spaces have been created to let in the new invaders.  

If you do a simplified Evens & Love (1957) Toe-point transect, where you walk 100 paces and each time you step, you note what plant your toe is touching, or you note when you hit bare earth--what percentage is native plants, exotic plants and what percentage is bare earth?  

PERCENTAGE OF VULNERABILITY. The percentage EXOTIC plants s your CURRENT vulnerability percentage and the BARE EARTH is the FUTURE vulnerability percentage of the area, for exotic plant invasion.  

Hope this information is helpful, and hope your land does not end up like California, a 99.999% weed-covered under-story. 

Hello Nelson.

The attached study used an ecologically based control strategy to try to reduce recolonization by an invasive grass after it had been removed by hand and herbicide. We tried to increase competition from native plants by re-establishing native species, in a semi-arid environment. The efforts largely failed, probably due to particularly low rainfall reducing seedling establishment.

Whatever typically limits seedling establishment in your ecosystem, a recommendation is to increase your chances of hitting a good year for establishment by seeding or planting in several years.

Also, watch out for strategies that may actually favour the invasive species or damage established native plants. We found that planting seedlings increased invasive seedling emergence and increased native forb mortality, probably due to the increased soil disturbance that is inevitable when you plant out.

Persistence is important. Best of luck to you.

steve woods

 I am interesting about Hybridization  ???  

Dear .. Cantasano 

I am working in Libya and Egypt . I and I’m will be very happy to contribute with you .

I would no say common, but there are recorded events with nuisance-level growth (for example, please see the link: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13102818.2014.901682#.VP3UiuHEXIU). All the best, Gana

Depends on your objectives, the quality and quantity of data that you have available to parameterize, verify, and validate the model, the data you have available on host distribution. the degree of biophysical resolution desired for the model, the combined expertise of the scientists who will be constructing and/or using the model, and the amount of time you are willing to spend on such a project. If you propose to determine the likelihood of spread under different field- and regional-scales and for a range of management approaches then I recommend you use a model structure that allows simultaneous movement to and from different habitats, with each habitat having attributes of host stage, abundance, relative attractiveness, daily/hourly temperature and wind speed, and access for management intervention. If you wish to model the population as age and space dependent cohorts, then I recommend you handle insect development as a distributed maturation process with ˚C, intrinsic developmental variability, and host quality as drivers. If you choose to model individual fly movement, then you would need to use an individual-based model structure., with spatial/temporal movement handled probabilistically as an age dependent dispersal rate modified by ˚C and wind vectors each time step. C# works well for individual-based modeling and can handle at least several hundreds of thousands of flies at a time. Given the nature of dispersal, you can greatly speed up the model using parallel and/or distributed processing. You could also use high-speed super computers. 

My experience with incorporating dispersal into both cohort-based and individual-based type of models is that the transition from a random dispersal to wind aided dispersal  is relatively easy to do. However, the incorporation of host preference is much more difficult due to lack of quality spatial/temporal data for model parameterization, verification, and validation.

Pot worms are tiny unpigmented worms (except some rare cases) earthworms are more robust and e.g. D. octaedra is dark red-violet.  Enchytraeids (when they are adult) possess clitellum on/around segment 12, lumbricids have longer clitellum and positioned more tailward  (from segment 20 or more back).

I always prefer to cite publications, but as it is a recent phenomenon and  I spend more than 4 months on the field every year since the invasion started, for once I will speak from personal experience (in France).

H. axyridis looked like a threat during the first years of the invasion (2008-2011 approximately) but since, the populations of native species have not suffered from its presence and it seems we arrived at an equilibrium situation.

At first there were so many H.axyridis (and as they were overwintering in or near houses, they were really conspicuous and annoying) that everyone thought it would be a huge threat for C. 7-punctata, A. bipunctata and some other Adalia species. Indeed larvae of H. axyridis do eat larvae of other species in case they cant find aphids, I saw it on the field sometimes. But nowadays the populations of H. axyridis have decreased a lot in France, at least in the areas I know, and the other native species are still as present as before.

That is why many publications used "early evidence" and such expressions when trying to prove that H. axyridis would cause the extinction of our native species (which particularly touched people, as ladybirds are umbrella species) .

People often like to draw quick pessimistic conclusions about invasive species, particularly when it might affect one of the very rare insect they love, but they forget that it takes several years to really know how the situation will evolve and stabilize. In that case, I can't be sure we have come to this balanced situation yet, but what I'm sure of is that I no longer see thousands of H. axyridis in every corner of the room every autumn, and I still can find as many  Coccinella or Adalia species on the field.

Some of the studies seem to show different trends at least in Britain, so what I observe on the field every year in France might not be true in other European countries. But I would recommend caution and patience when it comes to invasive species and ladybugs ;)

As you said, there are many papers describing Apis, Bombus and Megachile as invasive species. But "official" national or regional  lists of invasive species rarely contain bees, firstly because they usually contain few insects (these are more often listed as quarantine pests in the plant health sector) and also possibly because non-native bees also have positive sides, which makes their classification as invasive species more controversial than non-native ants or mosquitoes. However , some bees are officially listed here and there. For example, Bombus terrestris is listed in the Invasive Alien Species Act in Japan, where it is introduced, and it is also an official quarantine pest in several countries worldwide. In Australia, it is introduced in Tasmania but is considered a quarantine pest in the whole country, and. New South Wales qualifies it officially as a “Key Threatening Process”. The Africanized honeybee, Apis mellifera scutellata, has also been -and is still- listed in various sorts of States or local invasive species acts or quarantine lists during its spread in the Americas.

You can try on CABI

Many thanks Jean-Lou.

I was just wondering whether this “group” was recorded outside its native range.

Obviously taxonomic problems may bring some problems in studying invasive alien species…

Thank you again!

Hi Craig, this is a very interesting topic and one which I am actively involved in studying. First and foremost, the speciation process and the multitude of definitions of "species" is lineage dependent, and somewhat controversial.  One reason is that many taxonomists and systematic biologists might agree that the species designation is at least a somewhat artificial rank, and may not actually exist in all lineages in the same fashion, therefore I prefer to talk about rates of adaptation, ecological and morphological change in the introduced lineages relative to these characteristics in the natural range. The other main point to consider is the challenge of evolutionary and geologic time, versus the way humans view time.  New species can arise relatively rapidly, but that is "relatively" and still takes more time than even the longest PhD program NSF funding cycle, etc. We are looking at evolution and adaptation of introduced Jackson's chameleons in Hawaii, and let's say they have been here for 45 generations or so, and we are seeing subtle changes in head shape,  horn morphology and color signaling. We attribute these changes to the phenomenon of selective release, relating to differences in the Hawaiian versus East African montane ecosystems. 

Dear Sooraj,

First, MaxEnt is a presence-background model not presence-absence, and also BIOCLIM is a presence-only model. The presence-absence models are a different group of modeling approaches such as CART, MARS, SVM, GAM, GLM, etc.  

Second, I suggest you trying OpenModeler Desktop which the last version I think is 1.1.0, in this platform you could find more than 10 modeling approaches for your study.

I hope it would be useful for your project.

All the best wishes,

Ali