Summary of results on the multi-disciplinary mapping of the alien species distribution and impacts on the European coastal and marine habitats

Grant Agreement: 101082021 
Project Acronym: MARCO-BOLO
Project Title: MARine COastal BiOdiversity Long-term Observations
Deliverable Number: D5.4
Work Package Number: WP5
Deliverable Title: Summary of results on the multi-disciplinary mapping of the alien species distribution and impacts on the European coastal and marine habitats

This deliverable summarizes the scientific outputs generated by task T5.4. “Mapping the impacts of Non-Indigenous species (NIS) on European coastal and marine habitats, based on multi-disciplinary approaches”. In this task we integrated species occurrence data with environmental information to produce invasive heat maps and alien forecasts for the European coastline. These were then verified by alien species observations from the genetic observatory network EMO BON. Overall, we used a selection of 35 known marine alien species to predict suitable habitat for individual species as well as to identify potential invasive hotspots. Most of the individual models detected areas with suitable habitat where the species have not yet been reported from. The hotspot models identified regions with elevated risk for establishment and spread of alien species. These were located in the Southern North Sea, the northern Bay of Biscay, the Northern Adriatic Sea, the Northern Skagerrak, the Bay of Gdansk, and the eastern Black Sea. We could match observations of 32 alien species detected by the genetic observatories network ARMS-MBON against the predicted hotspots and found a reasonable overlap between the model predictions and the observations of alien species made by the genetic observatories. We conclude that ARMS-MBON and EMO BON may be used in the future to forecast, detect, and monitor the spread alien species on a continental scale.