Rarely naturalized, but widespread and even invasive: the paradox of a popular pet terrapin expansion in Eurasia

By

Reshetnikov, Andrey
Zibrova, Marina G.
Ayaz, Dinçer
Bhattarai, Santosh
Borodin, Oleg V
Borzée, Amaël
Brejcha, Jindřich
Çiçek, Kerim
Dimaki, Maria
Doronin, Igor
Drobenkov, Sergey M.
Gichikhanova, Uzlipat A.
Gladkova, Anastasia Y.
Gordeev, Dmitriy A.
Ioannidis, Yiannis
Ilyukh, Mikhail P.
Interesova, Elena A.
Jadhav, Trupti D.
Karabanov, Dmitry
Khabibullin, Viner F.
Khabilov, Tolibjon K.
Khan, M Monirul H
Kidov, Artem A.
Klimov, Alexandr S.
Kochetkov, Denis
Kolbintsev, Vladimir G.
Kuzmin, Sergius L, 1959-
Lotiev, Konstantin Y.
Louppova, Nora E.
Lvov, Vladimir D.
Lyapkov, Sergey M.
Mikhailovitch, Igor
Maslova, Irina
Masroor, Rafaqat
Mazanaeva, Lyudmila
Milko, Dmitriy A.
Milto, Konstantin D.
Mozaffari, Omid
Nguyen, Quang Truong
Novitsky, Ruslan V.
Petrovskiy, Andrey B.
Prelovskiy, Vladimir A.
Serbin, Valentin V.
Haitao, Shi
Skalon, Nikolay V.
Struijk, Richard P.J.H.
Taniguchi, Mari
Tarkhnishvili, David
Tsurkan, Vladimir F.
Tyutenkov, Oleg Y.
Ushakov, Mikhail V.
Vekhov, Dmitriy
Xiao, Fanrong
Yakimov, Andrey V.
Yakovleva, Tatyana I.
Yang, Peimin
Zeleev, Dmitriy F.
Petrosyan, Varos G.

Type

Article

Date of Publication

2023

Original Publication

NeoBiota : advancing research on alien species and biological invasions

Volume

81

Pages

91--127

Subjects

Alien species , Biological invasions , global change , invasion ecology , Nature conservation , Wintering

Contributed by

Pensoft Publishers

Language

English

Published by

Sophia, Bulgaria Pensoft Publishers

Identifiers

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3897/neobiota.81.90473

 

Abstract

The North American terrapin, the red-eared slider, has globally recognized invasive status. We built a new extensive database using our own original and literature data on the ecology of this reptile, representing information on 1477 water bodies throughout Eurasia over the last 50 years. The analysis reveals regions of earliest introductions and long-term spatio-temporal dynamics of the expansion covering now 68 Eurasian countries, including eight countries reported here for the first time. We established also long-term trends in terms of numbers of terrapins per aquatic site, habitat occupation, and reproduction success. Our investigation has revealed differences in the ecology of the red-eared slider in different parts of Eurasia. The most prominent expression of diverse signs of invasion success (higher portion of inhabited natural water bodies, higher number of individuals per water body, successful overwintering, occurrence of juvenile individuals, successful reproduction, and establishment of populations) are typical for Europe, West Asia and East Asia and tend to be restricted to coastal regions and islands. Reproduction records coincide well with the predicted potential range based on climatic requirements but records of successful wintering have a wider distribution. This invader provides an excellent and possibly unique (among animals) example of wide alien distribution, without the establishment of reproducing populations, but through the recruitment of new individuals to rising pseudopopulations due to additional releases. Therefore, alongside the potential reproduction range, a cost-effective strategy for population control must take in account the geographical area of successful wintering.