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Content with tag alien species .

Assessments of alien species impacts are reliable to prioritize resources

The Doñana Biological Station – CSIC has shown the reliability of assessments of alien species impacts, which help prioritize resources against one of the current and future challenges of humankind.

These assessments based on responses by experts are susceptible of high subjectivity and it was essential to test their utility in assisting in the management of alien invasive species.

Gulls can disperse seeds from native and alien plants between urban urban green areas

A study leaded by researchers from the Doñana Biological Station (EBD-CSIC) and the Institut de Ciències del Mar (ICM-CSIC) estimated the seeds dispersed and beyond Barcelona based on the movement of gulls monitored by GPS telemetry and seeds detected in their diet.
Modelling shows that around 30% of the seeds (including native plants but also alien species) were dispersed by gulls within green urban areas, concentrated in two main hotspots (Ciutadella Park and Montjuic), with important...

The alien boatman T verticalis is able to breed successfully in freshwaters

The corixid Trichocorixa verticalis originates from North America and is the only
aquatic hemipteran alien to Europe. It is spreading in south-west Iberia where it is
the dominant corixid in permanent, saline wetlands, where it may have excluded
halotolerant native corixid species. In the Doñana wetland complex in south-west
Spain, it is abundant in temporary brackish ponds but almost absent from
temporary fresh ponds where the native Sigara lateralis is the dominant...

Shorebirds disperse a wide variety of plants along the Atlantic flyway

Almost no empirical work has been done before on the plants dispersed by migratory shorebirds (Charadriiformes). By sampling faeces and regurgitated pellets in Doñana (Spain), England, Ireland and Iceland, scientists found intact seeds of 27 plant taxa, only four of which have a fleshy fruit widely considered diagnostic for this “endozoochory” dispersal process.

The role of different factors in the invasion success of current avian introductions

Understanding factors driving successful invasions is one of the cornerstones of invasion biology. Bird invasions have been frequently used as study models, and the foundation of current knowledge largely relies on species purposefully introduced during the 19th and early 20th centuries in countries colonized by Europeans. However, the profile of exotic bird species has changed radically in the last decades. Here, the role of the main drivers of invasion success on the establishment and...