Marine Biological Association (MBA) Research Fellow Dr Nova Mieszkowska and PhD student Katherine Park from the Mieszkowska Group have published a paper in Diversity and Distributions on rapid niche shifts which act as drivers for the spread of non-indigenous species.
Non-indigenous species (NIS) are one of the biggest threats to global biodiversity. Identifying environmental niche shifts is key for forecasting future species distributions under rapidly changing environmental conditions.
Non-indigenous species (NIS) are one of the greatest threats to biodiversity and understanding how niche shifts affect the spread of NIS is fundamental.
Using data from the Marine Biological Association’s long-term MarClim project and other data sources around Europe, researchers found that the Pacific oyster M. gigas has rapidly shifted its niche in its invaded environment of the northeast Atlantic since it was first recorded as introduced species over 50 years ago.
Read the full paper here.
