Advances and challenges in modelling the impacts of invasive alien species on aquatic ecosystems

Abstract

Invasive alien species (IAS) have become an important driver of biodiversity change and exert severe pressure on natural ecosystems. The development of modelling approaches to assess and predict their distributions and impacts, and evaluate management options has increased substantially.We reviewed these modelling approaches, applied in aquatic ecosystems, using a systematic review approach in line with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses (PRISMA). According to our results, multispecies/ecosystem models dominated the applications, with dynamic and nonspatial models being the most prevalent. Most of the models included an additional stressor, mainly fisheries, climate change or nutrient loading. The impacts on biota focused on predation, but also on competition and ecosystem functioning, while the impacts on ecosystem services focused on food provision and water purification. At species/population level, most of the studies reported negative impacts; while at multispecies/ecosystem level, negative and both negative and positive impacts were similarly represented.We reflect on the ability of current models to assess different impacts of IAS populations and highlight the need to advance their capabilities to predict future impacts. Further development of models that allow capturing the arrival, establishment and spread of IAS and assess their impacts in an integrated way is still needed. Spatialtemporal modelling techniques bridging with novel analytical capabilities (such as environmental DNA to investigate the presence of IAS and metabarcoding and machine learning to predict future trophic behavior and distributions) may be the key for future achievement.

Aquatic invasive species: introduction to the Special Issue and dynamics of public interest

“…Several recent reviews provide a good starting point to explore various aspects of aquatic invasive species (AIS) research including impacts modeling (Guy-Haim et al, 2018;Anton et al, 2019;Corrales et al, 2020;Thomsen 2020), traits and impacts (Boltovskoy et al, 2021), invasion syndromes (Novoa et al, 2020), first record rates (Seebens et al, 2017), effects on endangered and threatened species (Dueñas et al, 2018), food web effects (Gallardo et al, 2016;David et al, 2017), role of parsites in marine invasions (Goedknegt et al, 2016), impacts on ecosystem functions and services (Flood et al, 2020), management and eradiation (Simberloff, 2021), social perception (Kapitza et al, 2019) and policy issues (Geller et al, 2020).…”

Twelve Recommendations for Advancing Marine Conservation in European and Contiguous Seas

“…Various approaches were followed by the MarCons consortium to reach its stated goals. A number of systematic reviews were conducted to critically compile and analyze existing knowledge, current practices, methodological tools, and state-of-the-art in specific topics (e.g., Mačić et al, 2018;Gissi et al, 2019;Corrales et al, 2020). Data from large public databases, such as the Natura 2000 database, the European Red List, and the LIFE program (EU's funding instrument for the environment and climate) database, were retrieved and analyzed to gain insight on conservation outcomes, threats, practices, and efficiency (e.g., Fraschetti et al, 2018;Giakoumi et al, 2019b;Mazaris et al, 2019).…”

Impacts of climate change on the Bay of Seine ecosystem: Forcing a spatio‐temporal trophic model with predictions from an ecological niche model

“…In general, stocks with smaller body size and faster life history characteristics will better adapt to warming (Free et al, 2019; Moullec et al, 2019; Perry et al, 2005). One approach to assess this, similar to the work done with Ecosim on invasive species by Langseth et al (2012), can be used, but this would require new parameterization for such species and several assumptions concerning their foraging relationships with other trophic groups already present in the area, a main modelling challenge for future scenarios of global change (Corrales et al, 2020).…”