Format: ORAL

Carlos Gmez-Bellver*, Neus Ibez, Neus Nualart, Arnau Guiu-Bosch Jordi Lpez-Pujol

Botanic Institute of Barcelona (IBB), CSIC-CMCNB, Barcelona, Spain. * Presenting author: carlosmiguel.gomez@ibb.csic.es

High human population density and habitat fragmentation, in a future climate change scenario, may lead to an accelerating trend of biological invasions, particularly in Mediterranean coastal areas. A paradigmatic example of this is represented by the Costa Brava, a coastal strip of ca. 250 km stretching from the French-Spanish border to Blanes (Girona Province, Spain). It harbours a great richness of native species, some of them endemisms, as well as diverse natural habitats. However, it is under enormous anthropogenic pressure due to nassive urbanization, mass tourism, and the presence of numerous invasive plant species, mostly escaped from gardens. In order to minimize new introductions of alien plants and improve the management of invasive species present in the Costa Brava, an European Union LIFE Program project (LIFE medCLIFFS https://lifemedcliffs.org/es/) is underway. The initial phase required the design of around a hundred transects of 0.51 km in length distributed throughout the coastline to monitor by trained volunteers the evolution of 33 invasive or potentially invasive plant species populations (i.e. using citizen science). Large amount of data was gathered as a result of our field trips derived from examining the areas for the transects, together with the first results provided by the volunteers [which included the area (m2) and the size (census) of the detected populations of alien species]. All this information let us to identify and categorize the main impacts of these 33 invasive (or potentially invasive) species on native communities according to the Environmental Impact Classification for Alien Taxa (EICAT) criteria of the IUCN (2020). To our knowledge this is the first time that this standard classification has been used in a LIFE project and, also, specifically for a coastal area. Future projects employing this assessment methodology will contribute to a more accurate understanding of these impacts.