IMPROVING THE ASSESSMENT OF SPREAD AND IMPACTS OF FRESHWATER INVASIVE SPECIES
type: CreativeWork
description: Freshwater habitats occupy a small fraction of Earth’s surface, but they host 6-10% of global biodiversity and are considered endemism hotspots. Moreover, they provide ecological services for more than 6 billion people worldwide, thus their conservation is particularly relevant to preserve both biodiversity and human well-being. Despite their importance, though, freshwater environments are generally less studied than terrestrial habitats. Among the factors threatening global freshwater biodiversity, Freshwater Invasive Species (FIS) play a key role. FIS can impact ecosystems through multiple pathways and in some areas they represent a major portion of freshwater biodiversity, both in terms of number of species and biomass. Moreover, their introduction rate has not yet start decreasing. For these reasons, FIS are considered to be among the main drivers of freshwater biodiversity loss. Understanding the drivers of their distribution and the consequences of their presence on local communities is an essential prerequisite to enable efficient management measures. Despite numerous tools potentially appliable to FIS studies that have been developed in the last decades, their application to this field, as assessed in Chapter 1, appears limited. Moreover, despite the growing interests for this topic, certain relevant aspects of it remain underinvestigated. The aim of this thesis was to improve the assessment of spread and impacts of FIS using different approaches. In Chapter 2, I investigated the current distribution and spread of an invasive crayfish, Procambarus clarkii, in Italy using data coming from multiple data sources: published literature, grey literature, experts’ communications, and online forums. Eradication of FIS is often feasible only when the focal species has yet to establish a relevant population. As there could be a time lag between the first occurrence of a FIS in a certain area and its publication in peer-reviewed journals, using data coming from multipl…
abstract: Freshwater habitats occupy a small fraction of Earth’s surface, but they host 6-10% of global biodiversity and are considered endemism hotspots. Moreover, they provide ecological services for more than 6 billion people worldwide, thus their conservation is particularly relevant to preserve both biodiversity and human well-being. Despite their importance, though, freshwater environments are generally less studied than terrestrial habitats. Among the factors threatening global freshwater biodiversity, Freshwater Invasive Species (FIS) play a key role. FIS can impact ecosystems through multiple pathways and in some areas they represent a major portion of freshwater biodiversity, both in terms of number of species and biomass. Moreover, their introduction rate has not yet start decreasing. For these reasons, FIS are considered to be among the main drivers of freshwater biodiversity loss. Understanding the drivers of their distribution and the consequences of their presence on local communities is an essential prerequisite to enable efficient management measures. Despite numerous tools potentially appliable to FIS studies that have been developed in the last decades, their application to this field, as assessed in Chapter 1, appears limited. Moreover, despite the growing interests for this topic, certain relevant aspects of it remain underinvestigated. The aim of this thesis was to improve the assessment of spread and impacts of FIS using different approaches. In Chapter 2, I investigated the current distribution and spread of an invasive crayfish, Procambarus clarkii, in Italy using data coming from multiple data sources: published literature, grey literature, experts’ communications, and online forums. Eradication of FIS is often feasible only when the focal species has yet to establish a relevant population. As there could be a time lag between the first occurrence of a FIS in a certain area and its publication in peer-reviewed journals, using data coming from multipl…
author: LO PARRINO, ELIA
language: eng
date published: 2024-05-29
date modified: 2026-07-27T20:19:10Z
provider: Università degli Studi di Milano
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: Università degli Studi di Milano

PropertyValue
property ID: Handle
value: https://hdl.handle.net/2434/1053811

PropertyValue
property ID: DOI
value: 10.13130/lo-parrino-elia_phd2024-05-29