Distribution and Risk Assessment of Potential Invasiveness of Australoheros facetus (Jenyns, 1842) in Portugal

Abstract

Invasive species are recognized as a major cause of biodiversity decline. Legal regulations relating to the prevention, control, or eradication of invasive species should always be up-to-date, as the failure to recognize the problem, lack of adequate scientific information, or long legal intervals required to prepare the legislation may result in irreversible, possibly catastrophic, outcomes. This implies constant monitoring of the species distribution and levels of establishment, as well as detailed knowledge about its biology to predict dissemination and viability under changing environmental conditions. Pre-screening kits for potential invasive species are valuable tools for policy makers, as they provide information about if and how management measures should be taken. The Freshwater Fish Invasiveness Scoring Kit (FISK) and the Aquatic Species Invasiveness Screening Kit (AS-ISK) have been suggested as reliable tools to assess the potential risk of a species becoming invasive. The present study highlights the spread of the non-native chameleon cichlid Australoheros facetus in several streams of the major river drainages in southern Portugal and compares the fish assemblages and ecological indices in two selected sites in the Vascão and Odelouca rivers. We reviewed the current knowledge on the distribution, physiology, and behavior of A. facetus, and applied the toolkits FISK v2 and AS-ISK to this species to evaluate whether the species should be classified as invasive in Portugal. Field data show high abundance of the species in most streams and dominance in specific hotspots. The scores reached by the kits (FISK v2: 23; AS-ISK: 37) places A. facetus as a species with high potential of invasiveness and support the recent inclusion of this species in the invasive species list in Portugal (Decree-Law 92/2019), but, most of all, highlights the importance of frequent updates in both the field monitoring and the legal regulation and watch lists of invasive organisms.

Longitudinal patterns in water quality and fish assemblage structure in a low-gradient, temperate Neotropical stream disrupted by a point-source urban effluent

“…Other species such as A. facetus, H. commersoni and L. anus showed moderate scores in both axes compared to C. voga and P. pampa. A. facetus is known to tolerate saline waters up to 25 000 µS/cm and it is considered an invasive species in European streams (Baduy et al, 2019). Despite H. commersoni and L. anus are both Siluriformes of the Family Loricariidae, only the former is known to be tolerant to low DO levels (Franco, 1994) which agrees with a lower absolute score on axis 1 than for L. anus, which is less tolerant of water quality impairment (Bertora et al, 2018a).…”

Development and application of a multilingual electronic decision-support tool for risk screening non-native terrestrial animals under current and future climate conditions

“…importation/ commercial exploitation/evaluation of existing impacts for a specific risk assessment area (e.g. Castellanos-Galindo et al 2018;Suresh et al 2019;Baduy et al 2020;Zięba et al 2020;Haubrock et al 2021;Kumar et al 2021;Yoğurtçuoğlu et al 2021).…”

Quantifying current and future risks of invasiveness of non‐native aquatic species in highly urbanised estuarine ecosystems—A case study of the River Neretva Estuary (Eastern Adriatic Sea: Croatia and Bosnia–Herzegovina)

“…Given the requirement for at least 15–20 species for successful computation of RA area specific thresholds to distinguish between medium‐ and high‐risk species (Vilizzi et al., 2019), “generalised” aquatic organism group‐based thresholds were used in the present study (ICES, 2019), similar to other AS‐ISK applications (Baduy et al., 2020; Castellanos‐Galindo et al., 2018; Dodd et al., 2019; Filiz, Tarkan, et al., 2017; Filiz, Yapıcı, et al., 2017; Lyons et al., 2020; Paganelli et al., 2018; Zięba et al., 2020). Accordingly, for freshwater fishes, marine fishes and marine invertebrates, the BRA thresholds of 10.25, 12.75 and 16.5 and the BRA + CCA thresholds of 17.7, 19 and 13.5 were used; whereas, given the current non‐availability of generalised thresholds for tunicates and brackish invertebrates, the above BRA and BRA + CCA thresholds for marine invertebrates were used for these two groups of aquatic organisms.…”