Global Register of Introduced and Invasive Species - Belgium

Peter Desmet1, Lien Reyserhove1, Damiano Oldoni1, Quentin Groom2, Tim Adriaens1, Sonia Vanderhoeven3, Shyama Pagad4

1 Research Institute for Nature and Forest (INBO), , Belgium; 2 Botanic Garden Meise, , Belgium; 3 Belgian Biodiversity Platform, , Belgium; 4 IUCN SSC Invasive Species Specialist Group (ISSG), , New Zealand

Corresponding author(s): Peter Desmet (peter.desmet@inbo.be)Lien Reyserhove (lien.reyserhove@inbo.be)Damiano Oldoni (damiano.oldoni@inbo.be)Quentin Groom (quentin.groom@plantentuinmeise.be)Tim Adriaens (tim.adriaens@inbo.be)Sonia Vanderhoeven (s.vanderhoeven@biodiversity.be)Shyama Pagad (s.pagad@auckland.ac.nz)

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

Desmet P, Reyserhove L, Oldoni D, Groom Q, Adriaens T, Vanderhoeven S, Pagad S (2019): Global Register of Introduced and Invasive Species - Belgium. v1.6. Invasive Species Specialist Group ISSG. Dataset/Checklist. https://doi.org/10.15468/xoidmd https://doi.org/10.15468/xoidmd

Abstract

The Global Register of Introduced and Invasive Species - Belgium is a species checklist published by the Invasive Species Specialist Group (ISSG). It contains information on 2,500+ validated non-native taxa in Belgium and serves as the national reference for the Global Register of Introduced and Invasive Species (GRIIS, Pagad et al. 2018). The checklist is built through an open and reproducible workflow (see step description) developed for the TrIAS project (http://trias-project.be) from the following sources: 1) Verloove et al. (2018, https://doi.org/10.15468/wtda1m) for plants, 2) Boets et al. (2018, https://doi.org/10.15468/yxcq07) for macroinvertebrates, 3) Verreycken et al. (2018a, https://doi.org/10.15468/xvuzfh) for fishes, 4) Backeljau et al. (2019, https://doi.org/10.15468/t13kwo) for terrestrial molluscs, 5) Vanderweyen et al. (2018, https://doi.org/10.15468/2dboyn) for rust fungi, 6) Reyserhove et al. (2018, https://doi.org/10.15468/3pmlxs) for various species, 7) Zieritz et al. (2018, https://doi.org/10.15468/guejza) for pathways, which are all published through the TrIAS project, and the GBIF Backbone Taxonomy (https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei) for synonymy and classification. The unified checklist is published here as a standardized Darwin Core Archive and includes for each taxon: the scientific name, higher classification and stable taxon identifier, provided by the GBIF Backbone Taxonomy (in the taxon core) and related information in three extensions, provided by the source checklists (or the most trustworthy one in case of competing information). The related information consists of the year of first introduction and last assessment/observation in Belgium (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 Belgium (in the description extension). The source for each piece of information is credited. Issues with the dataset can be reported at https://github.com/trias-project/unified-checklist
We have released this dataset under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY 4.0). 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).

Keywords: Checklist, Inventorythematic, country_BE, checklist, inventory, alien species, non-native, invasive, 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=unified-checklist

Taxonomic coverage

General taxonomic coverage description: This checklist includes registered non-native taxa present in Belgium. It covers 2,562 unique taxa and four kingdoms: Plantae (2,168 taxa), Animalia (370 taxa), Fungi (20 taxa), and Chromista (1 taxon). This number of species is expected to increase with future updates. All taxonomic information is provided by the GBIF Backbone Taxonomy (https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei).
Taxonomic ranks
Kingdom: Plantae, Animalia, Fungi, Chromista

Spatial coverage

General spatial coverage: This checklist covers non-native species recorded in (at least part of) Belgium, and includes terrestrial, freshwater and marine habitats.
Coordinates: 49°29'24''N and 51°30'36''N Latitude; 2°31'48''E and 6°24'36''E Longitude 

Temporal coverage: January 1, 1500 - December 31, 2018

Methods

Method step description: 
- . 	Data for this checklist are retrieved, unified and standardized from source checklists through a series of RMarkdown scripts (https://github.com/trias-project/unified-checklist/tree/master/src) that are versioned on GitHub (https://github.com/trias-project/unified-checklist) and which include the following steps:
- . 	Choose published checklists to use as sources for this unified checklist and retrieve their taxa from GBIF (https://trias-project.github.io/unified-checklist/1_get_taxa.html).
- . 	Filter taxa on their associated distribution information to only target non-native species present in Belgium (https://trias-project.github.io/unified-checklist/1_get_taxa.html#filter-on-distribution).
- . 	Retrieve the GBIF Backbone Taxonomy information assigned for each taxon, as well as their originally published distribution, species profile and description information (https://trias-project.github.io/unified-checklist/2_get_information.html).
- . 	Verify (by humans) the synonymy information returned by the GBIF Backbone Taxonomy, i.e. accepting or rejecting the lumping of taxa that differ in their scientific name, but can be considered the same within or across checklists (https://trias-project.github.io/unified-checklist/3_verify_taxa.html).
- . 	Unify taxa within and across checklists to get a unique list of taxa and append higher classification information using the GBIF Backbone Taxonomy (https://trias-project.github.io/unified-checklist/4_unify_taxa.html).
- . 	Unify related information to get a single distribution and species profile per taxon (based on the most trustworthy source checklist in case of competing information), as well as all unique descriptions (https://trias-project.github.io/unified-checklist/5_unify_information.html).
- . 	Standardize the checklist to a Darwin Core Archive (https://trias-project.github.io/unified-checklist/6_dwc_mapping) containing 1) a taxon core (http://rs.gbif.org/core/dwc_taxon.xml), 2) a distribution extension (http://rs.gbif.org/extension/gbif/1.0/distribution.xml) with one distribution per taxon, 3) a species profile extension (http://rs.gbif.org/extension/gbif/1.0/speciesprofile.xml) and 4) a description extension (http://rs.gbif.org/extension/gbif/1.0/description.xml). The description extension contains information on the 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 (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: This checklist includes all registered non-native taxa present (present, common, rare, irregular) in Belgium included in the source checklists (see sampling description).
Sampling description: This unified checklist is the result of an open and reproducible data publication and data processing pipeline developed for the TrIAS project (http://trias-project.be). The data publication pipeline is based on the Checklist recipe (https://github.com/trias-project/checklist-recipe/wiki) and consists of the publication of a selection of authoritative (inter)national checklists as standardized Darwin Core Archives to GBIF: https://www.gbif.org/dataset/search?type=CHECKLIST&project_id=trias. These are: 1) Verloove et al. (2018, https://doi.org/10.15468/wtda1m) based on Verloove (2018) for plants, 2) Boets et al. (2018, https://doi.org/10.15468/yxcq07) based on Boets et al. (2016) for macroinvertebrates, 3) Verreycken et al. (2018a, https://doi.org/10.15468/xvuzfh) based on Verreycken et al. (2018b) for fishes, 4) Backeljau et al. (2019, https://doi.org/10.15468/t13kwo) for terrestrial molluscs, 5) Vanderweyen et al. (2018, https://doi.org/10.15468/2dboyn) based on Vanderweyen & Fraiture (2007, 2008, 2011) for rust fungi, 6) Reyserhove et al. (2018, https://doi.org/10.15468/3pmlxs) for various species, and 7) Zieritz et al. (2018, https://doi.org/10.15468/guejza) based on Zieritz et al. (2017) for pathways. Predominantly, these checklists record the presence of alien species in Belgium for a specific taxon group or habitat and are maintained by their respective authors. The data processing consists of the extraction of all Belgian non-native taxa from these checklists and the unification of their taxonomy (using the GBIF Backbone Taxonomy, https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei) and related information. This automated process is implemented and documented at https://trias-project.github.io/unified-checklist/ and discussed briefly in "step description" below.
Quality control description: Source checklists are verified by their authors and ranked by trust before processing. Scientific names not recognized or considered synonyms by the GBIF Backbone Taxonomy are verified (agree to lump or decide to keep as separate taxon) before inclusion (https://trias-project.github.io/unified-checklist/3_verify_taxa.html).

Datasets

Dataset description
Object name: Darwin Core Archive Global Register of Introduced and Invasive Species - Belgium
Character encoding: UTF-8
Format name: Darwin Core Archive format
Format version: 1.0
Distribution: https://ipt.inbo.be/archive.do?r=unified-checklist
Publication date of data: 2019-05-09
Language: English
Licences of use: Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) 4.0 License

Metadata language: English
Date of metadata creation: 2019-01-30
Hierarchy level: Dataset

References
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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
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. Version 1.5. Ghent University. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/yxcq07
Brummitt RK (2001) World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions, Edition 2. Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG) http://www.tdwg.org/standards/109
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
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Reyserhove L, Groom Q, Adriaens T, Desmet P, Dekoninck W, Van Keer K, Lock K (2018). Ad hoc checklist of alien species in Belgium. Version 1.2. Research Institute for Nature and Forest (INBO). Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/3pmlxs
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Vanderweyen A, Fraiture A (2007) Catalogue des Uredinals de Belgique. (1st partie). Chaconiaceae, Coleosporiaceae, Cronartiaceae, Melampsoraceae, Phragmidiaceae, Pucciniastraceae, Raveneliaceae et Uropyxidaceae. Lejeunia 183: 1-36.
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Vanderweyen A, Fraiture A. (2011) Catalogue des Uredinals de Belgique (3ème partie). Puccinaceae (genre Puccinia). Lejeunia 189: 1-65.
Vanderweyen A, Fraiture A, Groom Q, Desmet P, Reyserhove L (2018). Catalogue of the Rust Fungi of Belgium. Version 1.1. Botanic Garden Meise. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/2dboy
Verloove F (2018) Manual of Alien Plants of Belgium. Botanic Garden of Meise, Belgium. At: http://alienplantsbelgium.be.
Verloove F, Groom Q, Brosens D, Desmet P, Reyserhove L (2018). Manual of the Alien Plants of Belgium. Version 1.7. Botanic Garden Meise. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/wtda1m
Verreycken H, Belpaire C, Adriaens T, Desmet P, Reyserhove L (2018a). Checklist of non-native freshwater fishes in Flanders, Belgium. Version 1.4. Research Institute for Nature and Forest (INBO). Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/xvuzfh
Verreycken H, Belaire C & Adriaens T (2018b) The non-native freshwater fish fauna of Flanders (Belgium) with emphasis on the recent rapid range expansion of non-native Gobiids. Manuscript in preparation.
Zieritz A, Gallardo B, Baker SJ, Britton RJ, van Valkenburg JLCH, Verreycken H, Aldridge DC (2017) Changes in pathways and vectors of biological invasions in Northwest Europe. Biological Invasions 19: 1. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10530-016-1278-z
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Backeljau T, Reyserhove L, Desmet P (2019). Registry of introduced terrestrial molluscs in Belgium. Research Institute for Nature and Forest (INBO). Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/t13kwo