Charles Conrad Abbott

Freshwater ecosystems are highly vulnerable to the detrimental impacts of both biological invasions and climate change. Piscivorous alien fishes drive populations of small-bodied native fishes to extinction and warming is already driving extreme temperature events in lakes and rivers globally. Here, we use Ecological Niche Modelling (ENM) to predict how climate change will alter the geographical space of six alien fishes and five native fish genera (which include multiple endemic species) in Turkey, a hotspot of freshwater fish diversity. The models predicted that the geographical space of the alien fishes already present in Turkey would generally increase (including pikeperch Sander lucioperca and perch Perca fluviatilis ), but with the most substantial increases in largemouth bass Micropterus salmoides , a species not yet present in Turkey but that is invasive in countries nearby and is highly popular for sport angling. For the native fish genera, general predictions were for reduced geographical space, especially in the south and east of the country, suggesting the endemic species will become increasingly imperilled in future. Their populations will also be at increasing risk of deleterious impacts from the alien piscivores, as the predictions were also for increasing overlaps in the geographical space of both the alien fishes and native fish genera. These predictions suggest that the conservation of these endemic species need to consider measures on preventing both the introduction of alien species (e.g. largemouth bass) and the further dispersal of extant alien species (e.g. pikeperch), as well as habitat interventions that will limit the effects of climate change on their populations. These results also indicate that the combination of climate change and alien invasions could have substantial impacts on—and similar—hotspots of freshwater diversity.

Non-native (invasive) species offer a unique opportunity to study the geographical distribution and range limits of species, wherein the evolutionary change driven by interspecific interactions between native and non-native closely related species is a key component. The red-eared slider turtle, Tra…

In multiple regression Y ~ β0 + β1X1 + β2X2 + β3X1 X2 + ɛ., the interaction term is quantified as the product of X1 and X2. We developed fractional-power interaction regression (FPIR), using βX1M X2N as the interaction term. The rationale of FPIR is that the slopes of Y-X1 regression along the X2 gr…

Geographic rarity is a driver of a species’ intrinsic risk of extinction. It encompasses multiple key components including range size, which is one of the most commonly measured estimates of geographic rarity. Range size estimates are often used to prioritize conservation efforts when there are mult…

China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is an unprecedented global development program that involves nearly half of the world’s countries [1]. It not only will have economic and political influences, but also may generate multiple environmental challenges and is a focus of considerable academic and p…