Non-native mollusks throughout South America: emergent patterns in an understudied continent

Gustavo Darrigran, Ignacio Agudo-Padrón, Pedro Baez, Carlos Belz, Franz Cardoso, Alvar Carranza, Gonzalo Collado, Modesto Correoso, María Gabriela Cuezzo, Alejandra Fabres, Diego E. Gutiérrez Gregoric, Sergio Letelier, Sandra Ludwig, Maria Cristina Mansur, Guido Pastorino, Pablo Penchaszadeh, Carolina Peralta, Andrea Rebolledo, Alejandra Rumi, Sonia SantosSilvana Thiengo, Teofânia Vidigal, Cristina Damborenea

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

37 Scopus citations

Abstract

Non-native species have been introduced at escalating rates during the last decades, mainly due to the dispersion generated by the increasing trade and transport worldwide. Mollusks, the second largest metazoan phylum in terms of species richness, are no exception to this pattern, but, to date, a comprehensive synthesis of non-native mollusk species (NNMS) in South America was not available. For this purpose, an e-discussion group was formed with malacologists and taxonomists from South America, where we exchanged and analyzed bibliography, databases and information about NNMS, providing expert opinion to this assessment. The first list of non-native mollusk species for South America, considering terrestrial, freshwater and marine environments, includes 86 NNMS distributed in 152 ecoregions (terrestrial, freshwater and marine) of the 189 recognized for the South American continent. Information on their native region, vectors, first record for South America and distribution, are also provided. In the analysis of the distribution of the NNMS and the entry points of each species (e.g., ports, cargo and passenger airports, cities) and status of conservation of the ecoregions, four hot spots were recognized: Subtropical-Atlantic, Northern Andes, Central Andes and Southern Andes. This work, thus, sets the baseline on NNMS for South America, a key piece of information regarding the development of policies targeting the management of biological invasions and their socio-ecological impacts.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)853-871
Number of pages19
JournalBiological Invasions
Volume22
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Mar 2020

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
To the Economist Lic. Jorge Darrigran, for his advice on globalization. GD and CD were partially supported by Project No. 11/N795 Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Argentina. Authors thank the reviewers for their comments and suggestions that improve the final manuscript version.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2020, Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Keywords

  • Ecoregions
  • Freshwater
  • Hot spot
  • Invasive
  • Marine
  • Terrestrial

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