Name: Number of Harmful Invasive Species by Marine Ecoregion
Display Field: ECOREGION
Type: Feature Layer
Geometry Type: esriGeometryPolygon
Description: Number of harmful species that have invaded marine habitats, by marine ecoregion.
The occurrence and ecological impact of marine invasive species were compiled in a geographically referenced database by Molnar et al. (2008). Information about 329 species was systematically collected from a wide variety of global, regional, national, and subnational data sources. Non-native distributions were documented by marine ecoregion. The threat of each species to native biodiversity was scored using the following categories: 4, disrupts entire ecosystem processes with wider abiotic influences; 3, disrupts multiple species, some wider ecosystem function, and/or keystone species or species of high conservation value (e.g., threatened species); 2, disrupts single species with little or no wider ecosystem impact; 1, little or no disruption. Species in the top two categories (scores of 3 or 4) are considered “harmful invasive species” in this atlas (n=187), and the number of these are displayed in the map by ecoregion.
These data were derived by The Nature Conservancy, and were displayed in a map published in The Atlas of Global Conservation (Hoekstra et al., University of California Press, 2010). More information at http://nature.org/atlas.
Data derived from:
Molnar, J. L., R. Gamboa, C. Revenga, and M. Spalding. 2008. Assessing the global threat of invasive species to marine biodiversity: Framing the big picture. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 6, no. 9: 485–492.
This dataset was uploaded to Data Basin and is available with additional information at: http://app.databasin.org/app/pages/datasetPage.jsp?id=96f2def1efee4565bf039a04b56d9a86