Vadim E. Panov

Alien Invertebrates and Fish in European Inland Waters

It seems axiomatic that rivers, lakes, freshwater marshes, and other inland wetlands have an infinite value to humankind. They contribute for 20% (about US

A risk assessment of biological invasions in the inland waterways of Europe: the Northern Invasion Corridor case study

6.6 trillion) to the estimated annual global value of the entire biosphere (Costanza et al. 1997). High-quality water has also become a strategic factor that allows for the viability and development of an increasing number of countries affected by both climate change and rising water-demand. All this justifies the current concern about the degradation of freshwater systems leading to rapid extinctions of organisms – in some cases even matching the declines recorded in tropical forests (Ricciardi and Rasmussen 1999). There is general consensus today that some ali n species will continue to be major drivers of degradation and loss of aquatic systems (Sala et al. 2000; Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 2005). The vulnerability of inland waters to bioinvasions is due to several factors (Gherardi 2007a), including the higher intrinsic dispersal ability of freshwater species compared with terrestrial organisms (Beisel 2001) and the strong impact of both human disturbance (Ross et al. 2001) and altered seasonal temperature regimes (Eaton and Scheller 1996). Species introduction into inland waters is associated with the intensity with which humans utilise these systems for recreation, food sources, and commerce (Rahel 2000), being a direct consequence of economic activity and trade globalization that benefit millions worldwide (Lodge and Shrader-Frechette 2003). This situation has generated a conflict between two often competing goals – increasing economic activity and protecting the environment, which makes it difficult to decision-makers to develop policies aimed at containing the spread of aliens and mitigating the ecological risks they pose (Gherardi 2007a).

Status and Causal Pathway Assessments Supporting River Basin Management

INTRODUCTIONInland waterways have provided opportunities for the spread of aquaticnon-indigenous species (NIS) for many centuries (reviewed in Ketelaars 2004,Galil and Minchin 2006, Galil et al. 2007). Canals connecting different riverbasins have allowed for range extensions of many species, either by activemovement and/or by ship transport. Over the past century, the potential forspecies to expand their range has been enhanced due to increasing trade andthe construction of canals. The waterways occur at low altitudes and presentlythe main European corridor routes consist of an interlinked network of 30main canals with more than 100 branches, and more than 350 ports exist inlow-altitude Europe.The European Agreement on Main Inland Waterways of InternationalImportance (AGN) was signed under the framework of the United Nations639

Alien Macroinvertebrates and Fish in the Dnieper River Basin

The European Water Framework Directive (WFD) requires a status assessment of all water bodies. If that status is deteriorated, the WFD urges the identification of its potential causes in order to be able to suggest appropriate management measures. The instrument of investigative monitoring allows for such identification, provided that appropriate tools are available to link the observed effects to causative stressors, while unravelling confounding factors. In this chapter, the state of the art of status and causal pathway assessment is described for the major stressors responsible for the deterioration of European water bodies, i.e. toxicity, acidification, salinisation, eutrophication and oxygen depletion, parasites and pathogens, invasive alien species, hydromorphological degradation, changing water levels as well as sediments and suspended matter. For each stressor, an extensive description of the potential effects on the ecological status is given. Secondly, stressor-specific abiotic and biotic indicators are described that allow for a first indication of probable causes, based on the assessment of available monitoring data. Subsequently, more advanced tools for site-specific confirmation of stressors at hand are discussed. Finally, the local status assessments are put into the perspective of the risk for downstream stretches in order to be able to prioritise stressors and to be able to select appropriate measures for mitigation of the risks resulting from these stressors.

Erratum to: “First Finding of Ponto-Caspian Invasive Amphipod Chelicorophium curvispinum

The results of the study on spread, pathways, vectors, and ecological impact on the native fauna of alien invertebrate and fish species in the Dnieper River basin are presented. The relationship between invasive processes and basin hydrology is analyzed. It is shown that the main factor in spreading of alien species in the central part of the basin was related to the damming of the river, turning it into a cascade of reservoirs, and introduction of Ponto-Caspian species into the reservoirs. The differences in pathways and vectors for upstream, middle, and downstream parts of the river were revealed. In the midstream reservoirs, the main pathway was intentional introduction aimed at the improvement of valuable fish food resources, whereas that for the upstream part of the Dnieper and Pripyat rivers was shipping and natural spread. The “Black List” of invertebrates and fish for the studied basin is proposed.

First finding of Ponto-Caspian invasive amphipod Chelicorophium curvispinum (G.O. Sars, 1895) (Amphipoda, Crustacea) in Lake Ladoga

239 Original Russian Text E.A. Kurashov, M.A. Barbashova, V.E. Panov, 2010, published in Rossiiskii Zhurnal Bio logicheskikh Invasii, 2010, No. 3, pp. 62–72. On Fig. 2, above the scale should read 5 mm (instead of 1 mm). Erratum: “First Finding of Ponto Caspian Invasive Amphipod Chelicorophium curvispinum (G.O. Sars, 1895) (Amphipoda, Crustacea) in Lake Ladoga” [Russian Journal of Biological Invasions, 1, 4 (2010)]

Alien species in a warmer world: risks and opportunities

The invasive amphipod Chelicorophium curvispinum (G. O. Sars, 1895) (Amphipoda, Crustacea) was first recorded in Lake Ladoga in the area of Volkhov Bay in August 2009. The data on quantitative development of this species and two other alien species of amphipods (Baikal Gmelinoides fasciatus (Stebbing, 1899) and Ponto-Caspian Pontogammarus robustoides G.O. Sars, 1894) in three different biotopes in the littoral zone of the lake are presented. The necessity of further detailed studies of new alien species distribution in Lake Ladoga is emphasized since their introduction can pose a serious threat to the ecosystem in the littoral of largest European lake.