Miss Charlotte Clubley1, Dr Louise Firth1, Dr Louisa Wood2,3, Prof. David Bilton1, Dr Tiago Silva4, Dr Antony Knights1
1School of Biological and Marine Sciences, University Of Plymouth, Plymouth, United Kingdom, 2Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science, Weymouth, United Kingdom, 3Centre for Blue Governance, Faculty of Economics and Law, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, United Kingdom, 4Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science, Lowestoft, United Kingdom
Non-native species are spreading at an unprecedented rate over large spatial scales, with global environmental change and growth in commerce providing novel opportunities for spread. Assessing pattern and rate of spread is key to the development of strategies for safeguarding against future invasions and efficiently managing existing ones. Such assessments often depend on spatial distribution data from online repositories, which can be spatially biased, imprecise, and lacking in quantity. Here, the influence of disparities between occurrence records from online data repositories and what is known of the invasion history from peer-reviewed published literature on interpretations of non-native species spread was evaluated using 6,693 records of the Pacific oyster, Magallana gigas, spanning 56 years of invasion. Two measures of spread were calculated: maximum rate of spread (distance from introduction site over time) and accumulated area of spread (spatial expansion). Results suggest that despite discrepancies between online and literature data sources and a paucity of records from the early invasion history in data repositories, the use of either source to estimate spread does not result in significantly different outcomes. Our study adds to existing knowledge on the distribution of M. gigas throughout Europe, identifying a combination of short- and long-range dispersal as spread mechanisms. This method provides a framework by which online occurrence records can be assessed against invasion history from peer-reviewed literature to critique the robustness of these records and improve the quality of rate of non-native species spread estimates so that understanding of species distribution is maximised.
Presentation Slides – Charlotte Clubley
Biography:
I am a third (final) year PhD candidate based in the School of Biological and Marine Sciences at the University of Plymouth. My research focuses on how environmental filtering may affect the success of non-native species invasion, focusing on three key filtering mechanisms: dispersal limitation, abiotic filtering and biotic filtering. Within my research I use a combination of modelling, field-, and laboratory-based methods to test the relative importance of these filtering mechanisms using the Pacific oyster as a model species.
