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A hazardous place to live: spatial and temporal patterns of species introduction in a hot spot of biological invasions

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Abstract

Globally, the spread of non-indigenous species in marine ecosystems is a major ecological and socio-economical concern. The need for long-term assessment on a large scale is a pre-requisite for understanding the drivers associated with their establishment and expansion. Here, the patterns of invasions of subtidal soft-bottom assemblages of shelled molluscs have been quantified based on a unique dataset collected between 2005 and 2012 along the coast of Israel (SE Mediterranean Sea), a hotspot of bioinvasion. Overall, the number of non-indigenous species doubled between 2005 and 2012. Significant differences in terms of species richness and relative abundance were observed in space and time in both native and non-indigenous species. A combination of enduring disturbance regimes related to human activities and site-specific environmental conditions seem to have a critical role in promoting the observed patterns. Our results emphasize the value of long term broad-scale systematic surveys to the development of effective environmental policies for the control of bioinvasions.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the anonymous reviewers for their perceptive and helpful comments on an earlier version of the manuscript. The authors thank Dr. Isaac Gertman and Mr. Yaron Gretner, Israel Oceanographic and Limnological Research, and Mr. Rami Klinger, Israel Ports Development & Assets, for sharing with us valuable information. Funding for the monitoring the environmental quality of Israel’s Mediterranean coastal waters was provided by the Ministry of Environment. RITMARE Flagship Project funded by the Italian Ministry of University and Research, the European Community’s 7th Framework Programmes (FP7/2007–2013) for the project COCONET (Grant Agreement No. 287844, http://www.coconet-fp7.eu/), the European Union’s Horizon 2020 for the project MERCES (Grant Agreement No. 689518, http://www.merces-project.eu) are also acknowledged.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences and Technologies, University of Salento, CoNISMa, via Lecce-Monteroni s.n, 73100, Lecce, Italy

    Giuseppe Guarnieri & Simonetta Fraschetti

  2. Via Gino Romito, 37-57124, Livorno, Italy

    Cesare Bogi

  3. The Steinhardt Museum of Natural History, Israel National Center for Biodiversity Studies, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel

    Bella Sarah Galil

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  1. Giuseppe Guarnieri
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  2. Simonetta Fraschetti
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  4. Bella Sarah Galil
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Correspondence to Giuseppe Guarnieri.

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Guarnieri, G., Fraschetti, S., Bogi, C. et al. A hazardous place to live: spatial and temporal patterns of species introduction in a hot spot of biological invasions. Biol Invasions 19, 2277–2290 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10530-017-1441-1

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