Search results for " invasive alien species"
showing 9 items of 9 documents
Tree invasions in Italian forests
2022
Many forest tree species have been moved outside their native range to provide goods and services elsewhere, but some of them have become invasive, causing negative impacts on biodiversity and human activities. The assessment and knowledge on the degree and scale to which forest ecosystems are invaded by non-native trees is of paramount importance for tailored policies and strategies aiming at forest conservation. By analyzing main databases and literature and applying a four-level scale of invasion (not currently invaded and with low invasibility; potentially invasible; moderately invaded; massively invaded), we assessed the current and potential occurrence of twenty-five invasive non-nati…
Monitoring the invasion of an exotic tree (Ailanthus altissima) (Mill.) Swingle with Landsat satellite time series imagery in urban forest.
2015
In the Mediterranean area, one the most threat tree to various ecosystems is Ailanthus altissima (Mill.) Swingle. This is an aggressive invasive species common in natural and semi-natural habitat. Monitoring and mapping of invasive species is an important information for the conservation and management of ecosystems. The study of distribution and diffusion of invasive species are useful to assess their environmental impacts, formulate effective control strategies, and forecast potential spread. The main target of this work is to examine the feasibility of mapping the expansion of A. altissima using remote sensing techniques in a highly complex urban forest setting. Remote sensing has been a…
Population structure of Brachidontes pharaonis (P. Fisher, 1870) (Bivalvia, Mytilidae) in the Mediterranean Sea, and evolution of a novel mtDNA polym…
2006
Abstract Brachidontes pharaonis (Fisher P, 1870) is an Indo-Pacific mussel that has colonized the Mediterranean Sea via the Suez Canal. Mussels may have migrated by natural dispersal of pelagic larvae, or they may have been transported on the hulls of ships, or in ballast water, or by some combination of these. Mitochondrial COI sequences (618 bp) from 101 mussels from six localities in the central and eastern Mediterranean Sea and from one site in the Red Sea were used to describe population structure. Analysis of molecular variance indicated that frequencies differed among populations, and that 92% of the variation resided within populations. The majority of haplotypes were private allele…
ARE MARINE PROTECTED AREAS (MPAs) EFFECTIVE IN PROTECTING FROM INVASIVE SPECIES? THE CASE STUDY OF CAULERPA CYLINDRACEA SONDER (CAULERPALES, CHLOROPH…
2019
The main purpose of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) is biodiversity conservation. The effects that invasive species have on MPAs, and vice versa, are still not completely known, even though their assessment is crucial for MPA management and conservation purposes. In this respect, monitoring plans are essential and the involvement of citizen scientists may be fundamental. Our experience of Caulerpa cylindracea Sonder 1845 monitoring within the Egadi Islands MPA highlighted that the alga is widespread within the MPA, mainly at Favignana Island, also threatening valuable habitats such as vermetid reef and coralligenous formations. Moreover, Favignana is the island of the Aegadian archipelago mos…
Searching for the competitive ability of the alien seagrass Halophila stipulacea with the autochthonous species Cymodocea nodosa
2023
The tropical seagrass Halophila stipulacea (Forsskål) Ascherson, 1867 entered in the Mediterranean Sea through the Suez Canal more than 100 years ago. In coastal-marine ecosystems the spatial niche of H. stipulacea is often overlapped with that of native Mediterranean Sea seagrasses and therefore it might out-compete them. Aiming to better understand its invasiveness potential, we monitored a Southern Mediterranean shallow coastal-marine water habitat from August 2010 to August 2011, where H. stipulacea co-occurred with the native seagrass Cymodocea nodosa (Ucria) Ascherson, 1870. Besides, the year-round dynamics of H. stipulacea was also monitored in four periods. To test the hypothesis th…
Unpublished Mediterranean records of marine alien and cryptogenic species
2020
Este artículo contiene 18 páginas, 4 figuras.
Mediterranean identities - environment, society, culture
2017
The Mediterranean Sea, one of the most complex marine ecosystems, is inhabited by a rich and diverse biota which is disproportionate to its dimensions. It is cur‐ rently affected by different pressures, mainly driven by human activities such as cli‐ mate change and bioinvasions. This Sea, also due to its geographic position (wedged between the temperate climate of central Europe and the arid climate of northern Africa), seems to be one of the regions most susceptible to global climate change. The increased rates of introduction and spread of marine alien species may represent a supplementary stress factor to Mediterranean marine native biota already challenged by climatic abnormalities. The…
The impact of alien vascular plants in the aquatic habitats of a mediterranean island: preliminary data and observations in Sicily
2016
As is well known, invasive alien species pose a major global threat to the conservation of biodiversity, causing the extinction of native species and modifying ecosystem functions: this is true also for aquatic habitats, particularly susceptible to invasion due to usually high disturbance regimes and easy dispersal of propagules. The island of Sicily is one of the main hotspots of plant biodiversity, in the center of the Mediterranean basin; it hosts different types of freshwater habitats, both lentic (coastal wetlands, saltworks, temporary ponds, lakes, reservoirs) and lotic (springs, streams, permanent and seasonal rivers). As a first step of our analysis of the effects of the alien vascu…
Grandidierella bonnieroides Stephensen, 1948 (Amphipoda, Aoridae)-first record of an established population in the Mediterranean Sea
2016
The first record in the Mediterranean Sea of the invasive aorid amphipod crustacean Grandidierella bonnieroides is presented. A widespread circumtropical species, recorded off the Saudi coast of the Arabian Gulf, the Red Sea and the Suez Canal, it may have been introduced into the Mediterranean through the Suez Canal. This tube-builder species of soft bottoms recently established a population in the polluted Haifa Bay, Israel. Further, this is the first Mediterranean record of the genus.