Non-native Fish Occurrence and Biomass in 1943 Western Palearctic Lakes and Reservoirs and their Abiotic and Biotic Correlates

TROCHINE, CAROLINA; BRUCET, SANDRA; ARGILLIER, CHRISTINE; ARRANZ, IGNASI; BEKLIOGLU, MERYEM; BENEJAM, LLUÍS; FERREIRA, TERESA; HESTHAGEN, TRYGVE; HOLMGREN, KERSTIN; JEPPESEN, ERIK; KELLY, FIONA; KRAUSE, TEET; RASK, MARTTI; VOLTA, PIETRO; WINFIELD, IAN J.; MEHNER, THOMAS

ECOSYSTEMS (NEW YORK. PRINT)

SPRINGER

Lugar: Berlin; Año: 2018

1432-9840

Invasionof non-native species is considered a major threat to global biodiversity. Herewe present a comprehensive overview of the occurrence, richness and biomasscontribution of non-native fish species in 1943 standing water bodies from 14 countriesof the Western Palearctic, based on standardised fish catches by multi-meshgillnetting. We expected strong geographical gradients to emerge in theoccurrence of non-natives. We further hypothesised that the contribution by non-nativesto the local fish community biomass was correlated with local richness and thetrophic level of native and non-native species. Non-native fish speciesoccurred in 304 of 1943 water bodies (16%). If the average number of occupiedwater bodies per country was weighted by number of water bodies per country,the grand mean occurrence of non-natives in Western Palearctic water bodies was10%. Exotic (non-native to the Palearctic) and translocated (non-native only toparts of the Palearctic) species were found in 164 (8.4%) or 235 (12.1%) of thewater bodies, respectively. The occurrence and local richness of non-nativefish species increased with temperature, precipitation and lake area and weresubstantially higher in reservoirs than in natural lakes. High local biomasscontributions of non-native species were strongly correlated with low richnessof native species and high richness of non-native species, whereas the trophiclevel of the fish species had only a weak effect. Single non-native species rarelydominated community biomass, but high biomass contributions and thus strongcommunity and ecosystem impacts can be expected if several non-native speciesaccumulate in a water body.