Ensemble forecasting of the global potential distribution of the invasive Chinese mitten crab, Eriocheir sinensis

To invade or not to invade? Exploring the niche-based processes underlying the failure of a biological invasion using the invasive Chinese mitten crab

“…Because of the lack of information about the distribution of E. sinensis larvae in marine environments, we focused on freshwater habitats as reported by Zhang et al (2019a). We retrieved worldwide records of the occurrence of E. sinensis from the published literature (Zhang et al, 2019a) and from several online repositories, including the DASSH archive for marine species and habitats data (https://www.dassh.ac.uk), the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF.org, 2020), the National Biodiversity Network Atlas (https://nbnatlas.org), the Nonindigenous Aquatic Species database of the US Geological Survey (https://nas. er.usgs.gov), and the United States Geological Survey's Biodiversity Information Serving Our Nation (https://bison.usgs.gov).…”

“…Nineteen global land surface predictors at a spatial resolution of 30 arcsec were downloaded from the CHELSA database (http://chelsaclimate.org), which contains averaged bioclimatic variables for the period 1979-2013 (Karger et al, 2017) (Supporting Information Table S1). Because of the catadromous lifestyle of E. sinensis, we further considered a predictor variable representing the distance to the coast (details in Zhang et al, 2019a). Before analyses, we checked for collinearity between these 20 predictors by calculating pairwise Pearson r correlation coefficients (details in Supporting Information Fig.…”

“…Occurrence records of E. sinensis are available from the published literature (Zhang et al, 2019a) and online repositories, including DASSH (https://www.dassh.ac.uk), the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (http://www.gbif.org), the National Biodiversity Network Atlas (https://nbnatlas.org), the Nonindigenous Aquatic Species database of the US Geological Survey (https://nas.er.usgs.gov), and the United States Geological Survey's Biodiversity Information Serving Our Nation (https://bison.usgs.gov). The assembled occurrence database is also available from the first author upon request.…”

“…Numerous studies have shown that although complete eradication of established invasive species is possible, it is often expensive and prone to failure (Genovesi, 2005;Hänfling et al, 2011;Zhan et al, 2015). Therefore, it is highly recommended that effective control strategies for invasive species be implemented at the early stages of invasion (Giakoumi et al, 2019;Hänfling et al, 2011;Mehta et al, 2007;Zhan et al, 2015;Zhang et al, 2019aZhang et al, , 2019c. Many studies have documented successful biological invasions and the pathways of introduction typically involved (Jeschke and Heger, 2018;Lockwood et al, 2013).…”

“…We reconstructed the niches of native and invading populations using geometrical ndimensional hypervolumes (Blonder et al, 2014) and developed species distribution models (SDMs) to predict habitat suitability in native and invaded areas. SDM is an approach well suited to invasion biology (Peterson and Vieglais, 2001), and several SDM predictions have already been developed for E. sinensis (e.g., Herborg et al, 2007aHerborg et al, , 2007bZhang et al, 2019a). Despite the fact that SDM is based on the assumption of niche conservatism and niche shift during biological invasions would pose great challenges in predicting invasive potential, previous studies highlight the usefulness and necessity of prioritizing invasion hotspots using niche conservatism (e.g.…”