Inventory of alien macroinvertebrates in Flanders, Belgium

Pieter Boets1, Koen Lock1, Joost Mertens2, Peter Goethals1, Tim Adriaens3, Quentin Groom4, Dimitri Brosens5, Peter Desmet3, Lien Reyserhove3

1 Ghent University, , Belgium; 2 Vlaamse Milieumaatschappij (VMM), , Belgium; 3 Research Institute for Nature and Forest (INBO), , Belgium; 4 Botanic Garden Meise, , Belgium; 5 Research Institute for Nature and Forest (INBO) / Belgian Biodiversity Platform, , Belgium

Corresponding author(s): Pieter Boets (pieter.boets@oost-vlaanderen.be)Koen LockJoost MertensPeter GoethalsTim Adriaens (tim.adriaens@inbo.be)Quentin Groom (quentin.groom@plantentuinmeise.be)Dimitri Brosens (dimitri.brosens@inbo.be)Peter Desmet (peter.desmet@inbo.be)Lien Reyserhove (lien.reyserhove@inbo.be)

Received {date}; Revised {date}; Accepted {date}; Published {date}

Citation: Combination of authors, year of data paper publication (in parentheses), Title, Journal Name, Volume, Issue number (in parentheses), and doi of the data paper.

Resource Citation

Boets P, Lock K, Mertens J, Goethals P, Adriaens T, Groom Q, Brosens D, Desmet P, Reyserhove L (2018): Inventory of alien macroinvertebrates in Flanders, Belgium. v1.5. Ghent University. Dataset/Checklist. https://doi.org/10.15468/yxcq07 https://doi.org/10.15468/yxcq07

Abstract

The Inventory of alien macroinvertebrates in Flanders, Belgium is a species checklist dataset published by Ghent University. It contains information on 73 alien macroinvertebrate species (mostly crustaceans and molluscs) occurring in Flemish aquatic habitats, from inland lakes to coastal harbours at the North Sea. The inventory is the result of the study Boets et al. (2016) (https://doi.org/10.3391/ai.2016.11.2.03 with occurrence data at https://doi.org/10.15468/xjtfoo) where it was originally published as supplementary material. Here it is published as a standardized Darwin Core Archive and includes for each species: the scientific name, higher classification, and stable taxon identifier (in the taxon core), the year of first introduction and last assessment in Flanders (given as a year range in the event date in the distribution extension), coarse habitat information (in the species profile extension) and the pathway(s) of introduction, native range(s), and invasion stage in Flanders (in the description extension). The dataset can be used for researching and managing aquatic invasions or compiling regional and national registries of alien species. Issues with the dataset can be reported at: https://github.com/trias-project/alien-macroinvertebrates
We have released this dataset to the public domain under a Creative Commons Zero waiver. We would appreciate it if you follow the GBIF citation guidelines (https://www.gbif.org/citation-guidelines) when using the data. If you have any questions regarding this dataset, don’t hesitate to contact us via the contact information provided in the metadata or via https://twitter.com/trias_project.
This dataset was published as open data for the TrIAS project (Tracking Invasive Alien Species http://trias-project.be, Vanderhoeven et al. 2017), with technical support provided by the Research Institute for Nature and Forest (INBO). It is selected as one of the authoritative sources for the compilation of a unified and reproducible checklist of alien species in Belgium.

Keywords: Checklist, Inventorythematic, checklist, inventory, alien species, macroinvertebrates, Crustacea, Mollusca, Flanders, Belgium, TrIAS

Project details

Project title: Tracking Invasive Alien Species (TrIAS)
Personnel: Tim Adriaens, Peter Desmet, Quentin Groom, Diederik Strubbe, Sonia Vanderhoeven
Funding: TrIAS is funded by the Belgian Science Policy Office (BELSPO) call for Belgian Research Action through Interdisciplinary Networks (BRAIN).
Study area descriptions/descriptor: Belgium.
Design description: The project builds on two components: 1) The establishment of a data mobilization framework for alien species data from diverse data sources and 2) the development of data-driven procedures for risk evaluation based on risk modelling, risk mapping and risk assessment. TrIAS uses facilities from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF, http://www.gbif.org), standards from the Biodiversity Information Standards organization (TDWG, http://www.tdwg.org) and expertise from LifeWatch INBO (http://lifewatch.inbo.be) to create and facilitate a systematic workflow. Alien species data are gathered from a large set of regional, national and international initiatives, including citizen science data, with a wide taxonomic scope from marine, terrestrial and freshwater environments. Observation data are funnelled in repeatable ways to GBIF. In parallel, a Belgian checklist of alien species is established, benefiting from various taxonomic and project-based checklists foreseen for GBIF publication.

Data published through GBIF: https://ipt.inbo.be/resource?r=alien-macroinvertebrates-checklist

Taxonomic coverage

General taxonomic coverage description: In total, 73 alien macroinvertebrate species have been collected in Flanders of which 52 are regularly encountered in fresh and/or slightly brackish waters. The remaining 21 species are restricted to the marine environment for at least a considerable share of their lifetime. Most alien macroinvertebrate species are crustaceans (51%), followed by Mollusca (27%), Annelida (19%) and Platyhelminthes (3%). Most alien macroinvertebrates originate from North America (37%) or the Ponto-Caspian region (21%). The main vector of introduction is probably passive transport via the hull of ships (biofouling) and ballast water (71%). The transport via canals is the second main vector (28%) and promoted the dispersion of alien macroinvertebrates. Also, some species were introduced through aquaculture (17%) and hobbyists (6%) (Boets et al. 2016).
Taxonomic ranks
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Annelida, Arthropoda, Mollusca, Platyhelminthes
Common names: animals

Spatial coverage

General spatial coverage: This checklist covers alien macroinvertebrate species found in different aquatic habitats in Flanders (northern Belgium), including all types of waterways, lakes, and coastal habitats. The proximity to the sea, the interconnection of different waterways, the high degree of canalisation, and the presence of several harbours make Flemish watercourses susceptible to aquatic invasions (Boets et al. 2016).
Coordinates: 50°40'12''N and 51°30'36''N Latitude; 2°31'48''E and 5°56'24''E Longitude 

Temporal coverage: January 1, 1600 - December 31, 2016

Methods

Method step description: 
- . 	The source data for this standardized checklist is an Excel spreadsheet, originally published as Table S1 in the supplementary material of Boets et al. (2016) (http://www.aquaticinvasions.net/2016/Supplements/AI_2016_Boets_etal_Supplement.xls).
- . 	This raw data file was reformatted to make it more machine-readable and uploaded to a GitHub repository (https://github.com/trias-project/alien-macroinvertebrates). See https://trias-project.github.io/alien-macroinvertebrates for an introduction to this repository and the mapping of this dataset.
- . 	The source references for each taxon were also standardized and uploaded.
- . 	We developed a RMarkdown script to document and perform the transformation of the data to Darwin Core, which includes the following steps:
- . 	Perform some basic data cleaning of the raw data.
- . 	Generate stable and unique identifiers for each taxon (taxonID).
- . 	Create a taxon core file (http://rs.gbif.org/core/dwc_taxon.xml).
- . 	Create a distribution extension file (http://rs.gbif.org/extension/gbif/1.0/distribution.xml), including standardization of the distribution date range.
- . 	Create a species profile extension file (http://rs.gbif.org/extension/gbif/1.0/speciesprofile.xml), with coarse habitat information.
- . 	Create a description extension file (http://rs.gbif.org/extension/gbif/1.0/description.xml), with standardized pathway of introduction (using the pathway vocabulary from the Convention on Biological Diversity (2014)), native range (using the WGSRPD vocabulary from Brummitt (2001) where applicable), and invasion stage (set as “established” based on Blackburn et al. (2011)).
- . 	The resulting Darwin Core data files are uploaded to the INBO IPT and documented with metadata.
- . 	The dataset is published and registered with GBIF.
Study extent description: See Boets et al. (2016).
Sampling description: See Boets et al. (2016).
Quality control description: See step description.

Datasets

Dataset description
Object name: Darwin Core Archive Inventory of alien macroinvertebrates in Flanders, Belgium
Character encoding: UTF-8
Format name: Darwin Core Archive format
Format version: 1.0
Distribution: https://ipt.inbo.be/archive.do?r=alien-macroinvertebrates-checklist
Publication date of data: 2018-10-03
Language: English
Licences of use: Public Domain (CC0 1.0)

Metadata language: English
Date of metadata creation: 2018-01-30
Hierarchy level: Dataset

References
Boets P, Brosens D, Lock K, Adriaens T, Aelterman B, Mertens J & Goethals PLM (2016) Alien macroinvertebrates in Flanders (Belgium). Aquatic Invasions 11: 131-144. https://doi.org/10.3391/ai.2016.11.2.03 http://www.aquaticinvasions.net/2016/AI_2016_Boets_etal.pdf
Blackburn TM, Pysek P, Bacher S, Carlton JT, Duncan RP, Jarosik V, Wilson JRU & Richardson DM (2011) A proposed unified framework for biological invasions. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 26: 333-339. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2011.03.023
Brummitt RK (2001) World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (Ed. 2). Published for the International Working Group on Taxonomic Databases for Plant Sciences (TDWG) by the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh. http://grassworld.myspecies.info/sites/grassworld.myspecies.info/files/tdwg_geo2.pdf
Convention on Biological Diversity (2014) Pathways of introduction of invasive species, their prioritization and management. UNEP/CBD/SBSTTA/18/9/Add.1. Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity, Montreal. 
https://www.cbd.int/doc/meetings/sbstta/sbstta-18/official/sbstta-18-09-add1-en.pdf
Vanderhoeven S, Adriaens T, Desmet P, Strubbe D, Backeljau T, Barbier Y, Brosens D, Cigar J, Coupremanne M, De Troch R, Eggermont H, Heughebaert A, Hostens K, Huybrechts P, Jacquemart A, Lens L, Monty A, Paquet J, Prévot C, Robertson T, Termonia P, Van De Kerchove R, Van Hoey G, Van Schaeybroeck B, Vercayie D, Verleye T, Welby S, Groom Q (2017) Tracking Invasive Alien Species (TrIAS): Building a data-driven framework to inform policy. Research Ideas and Outcomes 3: e13414. https://doi.org/10.3897/rio.3.e13414