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Publication Details
AFRICAN RESEARCH NEXUS
SHINING A SPOTLIGHT ON AFRICAN RESEARCH
agricultural and biological sciences
Comparing environmental impacts of alien plants, insects and pathogens in protected riparian forests
NeoBiota, Volume 68, Year 2021
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Description
The prioritization of alien species according to the magnitude of their environmental impacts has become increasingly important for the management of invasive alien species. In this study, we applied the Environmental Impact Classification of Alien Taxa (EICAT) to classify alien taxa from three different taxonomic groups to facilitate the prioritisation of management actions for the threatened riparian forests of the Mura-Drava-Danube Biosphere Reserve, South East Europe. With local experts we collated a list of 198 alien species (115 plants, 45 insects, and 38 fungi) with populations reported in southeast European forest ecosystems and included them in the EICAT. We found impact reports for 114 species. Eleven of these species caused local extinctions of a native species, 35 led to a population decrease, 51 to a reduction in performance in at least one native species and for 17 alien species no effects on individual fitness of native species were detected. Fungi had significantly highest impact and were more likely to have information on their impacts reported. Competition and parasitism were the most important impact mechanisms of alien species. This study is, to our knowledge, the first application of EICAT to all known alien species of several taxonomic groups in a protected area. The impact rankings enabled to identify taxa that generally cause high impacts and to prioritize species for the management in protected areas according to their impact magnitudes. By following a standardized impact protocol, we identified several alien species causing high impacts that do not appear on any expert-based risk list, which are relevant for policymakers. Thus, we recommend that alien species be systematically screened to identify knowledge gaps and prioritize their management with respect to spatio-temporal trends in impact magnitudes. © 2021. Katharina Lapin et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Authors & Co-Authors
Lapin, Katharina
Austria, Vienna
Bundesforschungszentrum Für Wald
Bacher, Sven
Switzerland, Fribourg
University of Fribourg
Cech, Thomas L.
Austria, Vienna
Bundesforschungszentrum Für Wald
Essl, Franz
Austria, Vienna
Environment Agency Austria
Marinšek, Aleksander
Slovenia, Ljubljana
Gozdarski Inštitut Slovenije
Stojnic, Srdjan
Serbia, Novi Sad
University of Novi Sad
Zlatković, Milica
Serbia, Novi Sad
University of Novi Sad
Zolles, Anita
Austria, Vienna
Bundesforschungszentrum Für Wald
De Groot, Maarten
Slovenia, Ljubljana
Gozdarski Inštitut Slovenije
Statistics
Citations: 11
Authors: 9
Affiliations: 6
Identifiers
Doi:
10.3897/neobiota.69.71651
ISSN:
16190033
Research Areas
Health System And Policy
Study Design
Cross Sectional Study