Prospects for the spread of alien lizard species in Eastern Europe
Nekrasova, Oksana
Université de Strasbourg
CNRS IPHC, UMR 7178
Strasbourg, France
Schmalhausen Institute of Zoology of NASU
Kyiv, Ukraine
Daugavpils University
Daugavpils, Latvia
Pupins, Mihails
Čeirāns, Andris
Skute, Arturs
Daugavpils University
Daugavpils, Latvia
Theissinger, Kathrin
Justus Liebig University Giessen
Institute for Insect Biotechnology
Giessen, Germany
Fraunhofer Institute for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology,
Giessen, Germany
Georges, Jean Yves
Université de Strasbourg
CNRS IPHC, UMR 7178
Strasbourg, France
One of the negative impacts of climate change is the emergence of alien invasive species. As such, numerous alien lizard species recently appeared in Eastern Europe, such as in Ukraine: Podarcis muralis, Darevskia armeniaca, D. dahli, Tenuidactylus bogdanovi (breeding), representatives of Hemidactylus (chance find), as well as in Latvia: Scinax ruber, Podarcis siculus, Podarcis ionicus (chance find). This is not an exhaustive list. By implementing bioclimatic modeling approach based on GIS modeling (Maxent, WordClim), we demonstrate that in the near future (by 2050) new species from neighboring countries may appear - D. praticola (in the Danube basin and the Carpathians) and Ablepharus kitaibelii (in the Danube basin). The most promising species that are expected to expand their range and appear in the Baltic countries in the near future are P. muralis, D. praticola, A. kitaibelii and P. siculus. For these species, the range is predicted to expand by more than 1.2 times. As for geckos, they are confined to urban buildings or ruins, where there is sufficient solar insolation and microclimate. In Eastern Europe, such gecko-habitats depend on man-made areas (excluding southern areas with natural rocky habitats). Therefore, alien reptile species can be divided into 3 groups - eurybiont, future-promising and synanthropic. We thank for their support the projects EMYS-R https://emysr.cnrs.fr, 16LW015, PAUSE (ANR-23-PAUK-0074) and Nr.lzp-2021/1-0247.