Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2021 Oct 5;10(10):2113.
doi: 10.3390/plants10102113.

How Effective Are the Protected Areas of the Natura 2000 Network in Halting Biological Invasions? A Case Study in Greece

Aikaterini Christopoulou  1 , Anastasia Christopoulou  1   2   3 , Nikolaos M Fyllas  3 , Panayiotis G Dimitrakopoulos  3 , Margarita Arianoutsou  1
Affiliations

How Effective Are the Protected Areas of the Natura 2000 Network in Halting Biological Invasions? A Case Study in Greece

Aikaterini Christopoulou et al. Plants (Basel). .

Abstract

Invasive alien plant species represent an important threat to various protected areas of the world, and this threat expected to be further enhanced due to climate change. This is also the case for the most important network of protected areas in Europe, the Natura 2000 network. In the current study we evaluated the distribution pattern of alien plant taxa across selected continental and insular Natura 2000 sites in Greece and their potential spread 15 years since first being recorded in the field. A total of seventy-three naturalized plant taxa were recorded in the 159 sites under study. At the site level and regardless of the habitat group, the ratio of invaded areas increased between the two monitoring campaigns. An increase in the ratio of invaded plots was also detected for all habitat groups, except for grassland and riparian-wetland habitats. Precipitation during the dry quarter of the year was the factor that mainly controlled the occurrence and spread of alien plant taxa regardless of the site and habitat group. It is reasonable to say that the characterization of an area as protected may not be sufficient without having implemented the proper practices for halting biological invasions.

Keywords: European network of protected areas; alien species; climate; habitat group; plant invasions; temporal scale.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Number of alien plant taxa (A) and IAPS (B) recorded in each site during period A (1999–2000).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Number of alien plant (A) and IAPS (B) recorded in each site during period B (2014–2015).
Figure 3
Figure 3
The 159 Natura 2000 sites under study.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Ecosystems and Human Well-Being: Scenarios. Island Press; Washington, DC, USA: 2005. Millennium Ecosystem Assessment.
    1. Sala O.E., Chapin F.S., Armesto J.J., Berlow E., Bloomfield J., Dirzo R., Huber-Sanwald E., Huenneke L.F., Jackson R.B., Kinzig A., et al. Global biodiversity scenarios for the year 2100. Science. 2000;287:1770–1774. doi: 10.1126/science.287.5459.1770. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Tylianakis J.M., Didham R.K., Bascompte J., Wardle D.A. Global change and species interactions in terrestrial ecosystems. Ecol. Lett. 2008;11:1351–1363. doi: 10.1111/j.1461-0248.2008.01250.x. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Scalera R., Genovesi P., Essl F., Rabitsch W. The Impacts of Invasive Alien Species in Europe. EEA Technical Report/ No 16/2012. European Environment Agency; Copenhagen, Denmark: 2012.
    1. Steffen W., Richardson K., Rockström J., Cornell S.E., Fetzer I., Bennett E.M., Biggs R., Carpenter S.R., De Vries W., De Wit C.A., et al. Planetary boundaries: Guiding human development on a changing planet. Science. 2015;347 doi: 10.1126/science.1259855. - DOI - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources