Summary of the Analysis of Water Issues in the Siverskyi Donets river and Programme of Measures to Address Them
INVASIVE SPECIES The issue of alien species invading beyond their “native” habitats is of a global nature. Naturalization and further spread of invaders can cause irreversible phenomena in the environment, undesirable economic and social consequences. Currently, biological invasions are viewed as biological pollution, but unlike most pollutants that can decompose in natural ecosystems during self-cleaning processes and whose concentration is controlled by humans, alien organisms, when settling in a new habitat, begin to multiply uncontrollably and spread rapidly in the environment. This phenomenon can have unpredictable and irreversible consequences.
There have been almost no special studies of alien species of hydrobionts in the Don basin within Ukraine, but 18 alien fish species (27% of the total ichthyofauna) have been registered in its water bodies. Several publications are devoted to cases of mass development of water lettuce Pistia stratiotes. There is information on invasive invertebrates whose life cycle is associated with aquatic ecosystems, in particular, appearance in the Don basin of southern mosquito species capable of transmitting pathogenic infections to humans. Source: Yaroshevych et al. Overview of the Key Water and Ecological Issues in the Don River Basin, 2021.
Further, introduction of invasive alien species leads to irreparable loss of biodiversity both due to immediate destruction of the aboriginal species by predators through food and spatial competition, and due to displacement of the aboriginal species, changes in their habitats, and hybridization. Alien species can also pose a threat to the region’s biological safety.
35
